"Mademoiselle Evangelista, as
the daughter of a merchant, will certainly not open the doors of the
chapter-house of Cologne to him!"

"She is grand-niece to the Duke of Casa-Reale."

"Through the female line!"

The topic was presently exhausted. The card-players went to the tables,
the young people danced, the supper was served, and the ball was not
over till morning, when the first gleams of the coming day whitened the
windows.

Having said adieu to Paul, who was the last to go away, Madame
Evangelista went to her daughter's room; for her own had been taken by
the architect to enlarge the scene of the fete. Though Natalie and her
mother were overcome with sleep, they said a few words to each other as
soon as they were alone.

"Tell me, mother dear, what was the matter with you?"

"My darling, I learned this evening to what lengths a mother's
tenderness can go. You know nothing of business, and you are ignorant of
the suspicions to which my integrity has been exposed. I have trampled
my pride under foot, for your happiness and my reputation were at
stake."

"Are you talking of the diamonds? Poor boy, he wept; he did not want
them; I have them."

"Sleep now, my child. We will talk business when we wake--for," she
added, sighing, "you and I have business now; another person has come
between us."

"Ah! my dear mother, Paul will never be an obstacle to our happiness,
yours and mine," murmured Natalie, as she went to sleep.

"Poor darling! she little knows that the man has ruined her."

Madame Evangelista's soul was seized at that moment with the first idea
of avarice, a vice to which many become a prey as they grow aged. It
came into her mind to recover in her daughter's interest the whole
of the property left by her husband. She told herself that her honor
demanded it. Her devotion to Natalie made her, in a moment, as shrewd
and calculating as she had hitherto been careless and wasteful. She
resolved to turn her capital to account, after investing a part of it
in the Funds, which were then selling at eighty francs. A passion often
changes the whole character in a moment; an indiscreet person becomes a
diplomatist, a coward is suddenly brave. Hate made this prodigal woman
a miser. Chance and luck might serve the project of vengeance, still
undefined and confused, which she would now mature in her mind. She fell
asleep, muttering to herself, "To-morrow!" By an unexplained phenomenon,
the effects of which are f