knows that the baron is never at home. I did go there, however,
but in vain."

This chanced to be one of three consecutive days which Baron Trigault
had spent with Kami-Bey, the Turkish ambassador. It had been agreed
between them that they should play until one or the other had lost five
hundred thousand francs; and, in order to prevent any waste of "precious
time," as the baron was wont to remark, they neither of them stirred
from the Grand Hotel, where Kami-Bey had a suite of rooms. They ate and
slept there. By some strange chance, Madame d'Argeles had not heard of
this duel with bank-notes, although nothing else was talked of at the
clubs; indeed, the Figaro had already published a minute description of
the apartment where the contest was going on; and every evening it
gave the results. According to the latest accounts, the baron had the
advantage; he had won about two hundred and eighty thousand francs.

"I only returned to inform madame that I had so far been unsuccessful,"
said Job. "But I will recommence the search at once."

"That is unnecessary," replied Madame d'Argeles. "The baron will
undoubtedly drop in this evening, after dinner, as usual."

She said this, and tried her best to believe it; but in her secret heart
she felt that she could no longer depend upon the baron's assistance. "I
wounded him this morning," she thought. "He went away more angry than I
had ever seen him before. He is incensed with me; and who knows how long
it will be before he comes again?"

Still she waited, with feverish anxiety, listening breathlessly to every
sound in the street, and trembling each time she heard or fancied
she heard a carriage stop at the door. However, at two o'clock in the
morning the baron had not made his appearance. "It is too late--he won't
come!" she murmured.

But now her sufferings were less intolerable, for excess of wretchedness
had deadened her sensibility. Utter prostration paralyzed her energies
and benumbed her mind. Ruin seemed so inevitable that she no longer
thought of avoiding it; she awaited it with that blind resignation
displayed by Spanish women, who, when they hear the roll of thunder,
fall upon their knees, convinced that lightning is about to strike their
defenceless heads. She tottered to her room, flung herself on the bed,
and instantly fell asleep. Yes, she slept the heavy, leaden slumber
which always follows a great mental crisis, and which falls like God's
blessing upon a tortu