here is some one who
has disarmed him. That some one is the admirable woman who bears so
honorably the name which you have given her, and lives so bravely
the life you have doomed her to. Madame Jacquemin has redeemed the
infamy of Monsieur Puck. But when, in the future, you have to speak
of the misfortunes of others, think a little of your own existence,
and profit by the moral lesson given you by--AN UNKNOWN.

"Now," said Zilah, "be so kind, my dear Varhely, as to have this note
sent to Monsieur Puck, at the office of 'L'Actualite' and ask your
domestic to purchase some toys, whatever he likes--here is the
money--and take them to Madame Jacquemin, No. 25 Rue Rochechouart. Three
toys, because there are three children. The poor little things will have
gained so much, at all events, from this occurrence."

CHAPTER XXVI. "AM I AVENGED?"

After this episode, the Prince lived a more solitary existence than
before, and troubled himself no further about the outside world. Why
should he care, that some penny-aliner had slipped those odious lines
into a newspaper? His sorrow was not the publishing of the treachery,
it was the treachery itself; and his hourly suffering caused him to long
for death to end his torture.

"And yet I must live," he thought, "if to exist with a dagger through
one's heart is to live."

Then, to escape from the present, he plunged into the memories of the
war, as into a bath of oblivion, a strange oblivion, where he found all
his patriotic regrets of other days. He read, with spasmodic eagerness,
the books in which Georgei and Klapka, the actors of the drama,
presented their excuses, or poured forth their complaints; and it seemed
to him that his country would make him forget his love.

In the magnificent picture-gallery, where he spent most of his time, his
eyes rested upon the battle-scenes of Matejks, the Polish artist, and
the landscapes of Munkacsy, that painter of his own country, who took
his name from the town of Munkacs, where tradition says that the Magyars
settled when they came from the Orient, ages ago. Then a bitter longing
took possession of him to breathe a different air, to fly from Paris,
and place a wide distance between himself and Marsa; to take a trip
around the world, where new scenes might soften his grief, or, better
still, some accident put an end to his life; and, besides, chance might
bring him in contact with Menko.

But, just as he was ready