o little money in X---- that the inhabitants of the whole town put
together couldn't produce enough money to buy a poor little street.

The Bondavara Railway was in progress. Along the line the navvies were
working like a swarm of ants; they shoved wheelbarrows from morning
until night; they dug the ground, blew up rocks, bored mountains,
rammed plugs into water-sources, hewed stones, dammed rivers.

In the dark mouth of the Bondavara mine one man stood immovable. He
was ever watching the work. His gloomy, threatening face was fixed
steadily upon a windlass.

This man was Peter Saffran. He held in his hand a lump of coal, and as
he looked back from the noisy landscape to the remnant of trees his
eyes seemed to say, "Thou art the cause of all this tumult, this
wealth, this splendor; thou art a living power--thou!" And he hurled
the coal against the wall.

CHAPTER XXV

THE POOR DEAR PRINCE

"You have something to tell me: what is it?" asked Prince Theobald, as
he entered Eveline's drawing-room in answer to a letter from her,
written after her interview with her husband.

"I wish to leave Vienna."

"Ah! this is sudden. And where are you going?"

"My husband is obliged to go to Paris. I am going with him."

The prince looked inquiringly at her. "Have you, then, grown tired of
being under my care?"

"I am afraid I cannot deny it. I am like a slave in a gilded cage. I
am a sort of prisoner, and I want to see life."

"You repent, then, of the promise you made me? Well, then, I release
you; but stay with me."

"I should be too proud to receive benefits from any one to whom I am
ungrateful. Besides, it would be enough for me to know that you are
the master of the palace to take all sense of freedom from me. I don't
want to receive any more favors."

"You wish to become an actress?"

"I do wish that." Eveline laid a stress on the last word.

"From ambition?"

"I cannot say so. If I were ambitious I should be more diligent. I
want my freedom. I don't want my wings clipped. I like to feel I can
use them as I choose."

"That is rather a dangerous experiment for any one so young and pretty
as you are."

"One never falls so low that one cannot rise again."

"Where did you learn that?"

"From what I see every day."

"You are resolved to leave me?"

"I am--I am--I am!" Eveline repeated these words impatiently.

"Then I had better free you from my disagreeable society as soon as
possible," said th