t
the morning had cost him.

"I have scarcely enough for two months!" he said.

A cold sweat broke out over him; moved by an ungovernable spasm of rage,
he seized the Magic Skin, exclaiming:

"I am a perfect fool!"

He rushed out of the house and across the garden, and flung the talisman
down a well.

"_Vogue la galere_," cried he. "The devil take all this nonsense."

So Raphael gave himself up to the happiness of being beloved, and led
with Pauline the life of heart and heart. Difficulties which it would
be somewhat tedious to describe had delayed their marriage, which was to
take place early in March. Each was sure of the other; their affection
had been tried, and happiness had taught them how strong it was. Never
has love made two souls, two natures, so absolutely one. The more they
came to know of each other, the more they loved. On either side there
was the same hesitating delicacy, the same transports of joy such as
angels know; there were no clouds in their heaven; the will of either
was the other's law.

Wealthy as they both were, they had not a caprice which they could not
gratify, and for that reason had no caprices. A refined taste, a feeling
for beauty and poetry, was instinct in the soul of the bride; her
lover's smile was more to her than all the pearls of Ormuz. She
disdained feminine finery; a muslin dress and flowers formed her most
elaborate toilette.

Pauline and Raphael shunned every one else, for solitude was abundantly
beautiful to them. The idlers at the Opera, or at the Italiens, saw this
charming and unconventional pair evening after evening. Some gossip
went the round of the salons at first, but the harmless lovers were
soon forgotten in the course of events which took place in Paris; their
marriage was announced at length to excuse them in the eyes of the
prudish; and as it happened, their servants did not babble; so their
bliss did not draw down upon them any very severe punishment.

One morning towards the end of February, at the time when the
brightening days bring a belief in the nearness of the joys of spring,
Pauline and Raphael were breakfasting together in a small conservatory,
a kind of drawing-room filled with flowers, on a level with the garden.
The mild rays of the pale winter sunlight, breaking through the thicket
of exotic plants, warmed the air somewhat. The vivid contrast made by
the varieties of foliage, the colors of the masses of flowering shrubs,
the freaks of l