ou--nothing of the kind. There is my strong box; take it, it is yours.
Yes; and I have to pay you more than that. I am in your debt. Take it,
take it!'

"'Oh, my girl!' cried Vertua. But Angela went up to the Chevalier,
beamed a proud look upon him, and said, gravely and calmly,
'Learn, Chevalier, that there are higher things than money and
possessions--things which you have no knowledge of--which, while
filling our souls with the happiness of heaven, make us spurn your
gifts with compassion and contempt. Keep the mammon upon which lies the
curse which pursues you, heartless, accursed gambler.'

"'Yes!' cried the Chevalier wildly; 'cursed, cursed in verity may I be,
if ever this hand of mine touches a card again. And if you repel me,
Angela, it will be you who will bring inevitable destruction upon me.
Oh, you don't understand me. You must think me mad; but you will know
it all when I lie before you with my skull shivered into fragments.
Angela, it is life or death with me. Adieu!'

"With this he dashed away in utter desperation. Vertua thoroughly
understood him; he saw what had been passing in his heart, and tried to
make the lovely Angela comprehend how certain eventualities might arise
which would render it necessary to accept the Chevalier's offers.
Angela was afraid to allow herself to understand her father; she did
not think it would ever be possible to regard the Chevalier otherwise
than with contempt; but that mysterious chain of events which often
forms itself within the profundities of the human heart, without our
cognisance, brought to pass that which seemed unimagined--undreamt of.

"The Chevalier felt as if suddenly awakened from a horrible dream. He
saw himself standing on the brink of the abyss of hell, stretching his
arms out in vain to the shining form of light which had appeared to
him, not to save him, but to tell him of his damnation.

"To the surprise of all Paris his banque opened no more, and he himself
was no more seen, so that the most marvellous tales concerning him
became current, each of them a greater falsehood than the others. He
avoided all society; his love took the form of the profoundest, most
unconquerable melancholy. One day he met old Vertua and his daughter in
one of the lonely, shady walks of the garden at Malmaison.

"Angela, who had believed she would never be able to look upon the
Chevalier again but with horror and contempt, felt strangely moved when
she saw him so pale a