Valerie----"

"Enough" said his father, sternly. "I address you as a man of the world,
and a man of sense; you answer me with infatuated folly. I give you your
choice: my aid and esteem, in everything you can desire, or the madman's
gratification of the ill-placed caprice of the hour."

Falkenstein rose as haughtily as the Count.

"Virtually, then, you give me no choice. I am sorry I troubled you with
my concerns. I know whose interference I have to thank for it, and am
only astonished you are so easily influenced," said Falkenstein, setting
his teeth hard as he closed the door; for his father's easy desertion of
him hit him hard, and he attributed it, rightly enough, to Maximilian,
who, industriously gathering every grain of evil report against his
brother, had taken such a character of Valerie--whom, unluckily, he had
seen coming out of Duke street--down to Fairlee, that his father vowed
to disinherit him, and his sisters never to speak to him. The doors both
of his own home and Lowndes Square were closed to him; and in his
adversity the only one that clung to him was Valerie.

If he had been willing to ask them, none of his friends could have
helped him. Godolphin, with 20,000_l_. a year, spent every shilling on
himself; Tom Bevan, but that he stood for a pocket borough of his
governor's, would have been in quod long ago; and for the others, men
very willing to take your money at ecarte are not very willing to lend
you theirs when you can play ecarte no longer. Amadeus Levi grew more
and more importunate; down on him at once, as Falkenstein knew, would
come the Jew's _griffes_ if he took any such unprofitable step as a
marriage for love; and with all the passion in the world,
mesdemoiselles, a man thinks twice before he throws himself into the
Insolvent Court.

One night, _nolens volens_, decision was forced on him. He had seen
Valerie that morning in the Pantheon, and they had parted to meet again
at a ball, one of the lingering stragglers of the past season. About
twelve he dressed and walked down Duke Street, looking for a cab to take
him to Park Lane. Under a lamp at the corner, standing reading, he saw a
man whom he knew by sight, and whose errand he guessed without
hesitation. He paused unnoticed close beside him; he stood a moment and
glanced over his shoulder; he saw a warrant for his own apprehension at
Levi's suit. The man looking, to make sure of the dress, never raised
his eyes. Falkenstein walked