your identity, and then you can
assert your claims and take possession of your brother's estate."

Madame d'Argeles sprang to her feet. "Never never!" she exclaimed,
vehemently.

The baron evidently thought he must have misunderstood her. "What!" he
stammered; "you will relinquish the millions that are legally yours, to
the government?"

"Yes--I am resolved--it must be so."

"Will you sacrifice your son's future in this style?"

"No, it isn't in my power to do that; but Wilkie will do so, later, on,
I'm sure of it."

"But this is simply folly."

A feverish agitation had now succeeded Madame d'Argeles's torpor; there
was an expression of scorn and anger on her rigid features, and her
eyes, usually so dull and lifeless, fairly blazed. "It is not folly,"
she exclaimed, "but vengeance!" And as the astonished baron opened his
lips to question her: "Let me finish," she said imperiously, "and then
you shall judge me. I have told you with perfect frankness everything
concerning my past life, save this--this--that I am married, Monsieur
le Baron, legally married. I am bound by a chain that nothing can break,
and my husband is a scoundrel. You would be frightened if you knew half
the extent of his villainy. Oh! do not shake your head. I ought not to
be suspected of exaggeration when I speak in this style of a man whom I
once loved so devotedly. For I loved him, alas!--even to madness--loved
him so much that I forgot self, family, honor, and all the most sacred
duties. I loved him so madly that I was willing to follow him, while his
hands were still wet with my brother's blood. Ah! chastisement could not
fail to come, and it was terrible, like the sin. This man for whom I had
abandoned everything--whom I had made my idol--do you know what he said
to me the third day after my flight from home? 'You must be more stupid
than an owl to have forgotten to take your jewels.' Yes, those were the
very words he said to me, with a furious air. And then I could measure
the depths of the abyss into which I had plunged. This man, with whom I
had been so infatuated, did not love me at all, he had never loved me.
It had only been cold calculation on his part. He had devoted months to
the task of winning my heart, just as he would have devoted them to
some business transaction. He only saw in me the fortune that I was
to inherit. Oh! he didn't conceal it from me. 'If your parents are not
monsters,' he was always saying, 'they will finally