nowing
anything unless we know it all? His love was more perfect than the love
of Petrarch for Laura, which found its ultimate reward in the treasures
of fame, the triumph of the poem which she had inspired. Surely the
emotion that the Chevalier d'Assas felt in dying must have been to him
a lifetime of joy. Such emotions as these Paz enjoyed daily,--without
dying, but also without the guerdon of immortality.

But what is Love, that, in spite of all these ineffable delights, Paz
should still have been unhappy? The Catholic religion has so magnified
Love that she has wedded it indissolubly to respect and nobility of
spirit. Love is therefore attended by those sentiments and qualities
of which mankind is proud; it is rare to find true Love existing where
contempt is felt. Thaddeus was suffering from the wounds his own hand
had given him. The trial of his former life, when he lived beside his
mistress, unknown, unappreciated, but generously working for her, was
better than this. Yes, he wanted the reward of his virtue, her respect,
and he had lost it. He grew thin and yellow, and so ill with constant
low fever that during the month of January he was obliged to keep his
bed, though he refused to see a doctor. Comte Adam became very uneasy
about him; but the countess had the cruelty to remark: "Let him alone;
don't you see it is only some Olympian trouble?" This remark, being
repeated to Thaddeus, gave him the courage of despair; he left his bed,
went out, tried a few amusements, and recovered his health.

About the end of February Adam lost a large sum of money at the
Jockey-Club, and as he was afraid of his wife, he begged Thaddeus to let
the sum appear in the accounts as if he had spent it on Malaga.

"There's nothing surprising in your spending that sum on the girl;
but if the countess finds out that I have lost it at cards I shall be
lowered in her opinion, and she will always be suspicious in future."

"Ha! this, too!" exclaimed Thaddeus, with a sigh.

"Now, Thaddeus, if you will do me this service we shall be forever
quits,--though, indeed, I am your debtor now."

"Adam, you will have children; don't gamble any more," said Paz.

"So Malaga has cost us another twenty thousand francs," cried the
countess, some time later, when she discovered this new generosity to
Paz. "First, ten thousand, now twenty more,--thirty thousand! the income
of which is fifteen hundred! the cost of my box at the Opera, and the
whole for