myself, give myself up to justice? Ah! speak to me! speak to me!"

"Live with Michel Menko, if he is still alive after I have met him!"
responded Andras, in hard, metallic tones, waving back the unhappy woman
who threw herself on her knees, her arms outstretched toward him.

The door closed behind him. For a moment she gazed after him with
haggard eyes: and then, dragging herself, her bridal robes trailing
behind her, to the door, she tried to call after him, to detain the man
whom she adored, and who was flying from her; but her voice failed her,
and, with one wild, inarticulate cry, she fell forward on her face, with
a horrible realization of the immense void which filled the house, this
morning gay and joyous, now silent as a tomb.

And while the Prince, in the carriage which bore him away, read the
letters in which Marsa spoke of her love for another, and that other the
man whom he called "my child;" while he paused in this agonizing reading
to ask himself if it were true, if such a sudden annihilation of his
happiness were possible, if so many misfortunes could happen in such a
few hours; while he watched the houses and trees revolve slowly by him,
and feared that he was going mad--Marsa's servants ate the remnants of
the lunch, and drank what was left of the champagne to the health of the
Prince and Princess Zilah.

CHAPTER XXIII. "THE WORLD HOLDS BUT ONE FAIR MAIDEN"

Paris, whose everyday gossip has usually the keenness and eagerness of
the tattle of small villages, preserves at times, upon certain serious
subjects, a silence which might be believed to be generous. Whether it
is from ignorance or from respect, at all events it has little to say.
There are vague suspicions of the truth, surmises are made, but nothing
is affirmed; and this sort of abdication of public malignity is the most
complete homage that can be rendered either to character or talent.

The circle of foreigners in Paris, that contrasted society which
circled and chattered in the salon of the Baroness Dinati, could not, of
necessity, be ignorant that the Princess Zilah, since the wedding which
had attracted to Maisons-Lafitte a large part of the fashionable world,
had not left her house, while Prince Andras had returned to Paris alone.

There were low-spoken rumors of all sorts. It was said that Marsa had
been attacked by an hereditary nervous malady; and in proof of this
were cited the visits made at Maisons-Lafitte by Dr. Fargeas,