to behold the total eclipse of
his proud reputation and family name; to witness the ploughshare of
social degradation and financial ruin driven by avenging hands over
all he held dearest, was a doom which the vanquished old man could
not survive.

Perhaps the vital forces had already begun to yield to the disease
that so suddenly prostrated him at Naples, dashing the cup of joy
from his thirsty lips; and perchance the grim Kata-clothes had handed
the worn tangled threads of existence to their faithful minister
Paralysis, even before the severe shock that numbed him while sitting
in the theatre _loge_.

When his eyes closed upon the spectacle of his son, folding in his
arms his firstborn, they shut out for ever the things of time and
sense, and consciousness that forsook him then never reoccupied its
throne. He was carried from the brilliant salon of the popular
actress to the home of his son; medical skill exhausted its
ingenuity, and though forty-eight hours elapsed before the weary
heart ceased its slow feeble pulsations, General Laurance's soul
passed to its final assize, without even a shadowy farewell
recognition of the son, for whom he had hoped, suffered, dared so
much.

"Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and
some men they follow after."

During the week that succeeded his temporary entombment in the sacred
repose of _Pere La Chaise_, Mrs. Orme completed her brief engagement
at the theatre where she had so dearly earned her freshest laurels;
and though her tragic career closed in undimmed splendour, when she
voluntarily abdicated the throne she had justly won, bidding adieu
for ever to the scene of former triumphs, she heard above the
plaudits of the multitude the stern whisper, "Vengeance is mine,
saith the Lord, I will repay."

The man whom she most intensely hated, and most ardently longed to
humiliate and abase in public estimation, had escaped the punishment;
housed from reproach by the stony walls of the tomb, mocking her
efforts to requite the suffering he had inflicted; and the keenest
anticipations of her vindictive purpose were foiled, vanquished.

One morning, ten days after the presentation of "Infelice," Mrs. Orme
sat listening to her daughter, who, observing her restless,
dissatisfied manner, proposed to read aloud. Between the two had
fallen an utter silence with reference to the past, and not an
allusion had been made to Cuthbert Laurance since the night he ha