lls. She felt
again on her lips the degradation of the first kiss of this man whose
suppliant, pitiful love was hideous to her.

She made a step toward the dying man as if to force herself to whisper,
"I forgive you;" but all the resentment and suffering of her life mounted
to her heart, almost stifling her, and she paused, going no farther, and
regarding with a haggard glance the man whose eyes implored her pardon,
and who, after raising his pale face from the pillow, let his head fall
back again with one long, weary sigh.

CHAPTER VII

THE STORY OF MARSA

Prince Tchereteff left his whole fortune to Marsa Laszlo, leaving her in
the hands of his uncle Vogotzine, an old, ruined General, whose property
had been confiscated by the Czar, and who lived in Paris half imbecile
with fear, having become timid as a child since his release from Siberia,
where he had been sent on some pretext or other, no one knew exactly the
reason why.

It had been necessary to obtain the sovereign intervention of the
Czar--that Czar whose will is the sole law, a law above laws--to permit
Prince Tchereteff to give his property to a foreigner, a girl without a
name. The state would gladly have seized upon the fortune, as the Prince
had no other relative save an outlaw; but the Czar graciously gave his
permission, and Marsa inherited.

Old General Vogotzine was, in fact, the only living relative of Prince
Tchereteff. In consideration of a yearly income, the Prince charged him
to watch over Marsa, and see to her establishment in life. Rich as she
was, Marsa would have no lack of suitors; but Tisza, the half-civilized
Tzigana, was not the one to guide and protect a young girl in Paris. The
Prince believed Vogotzine to be less old and more acquainted with
Parisian life than he really was, and it was a consolation to the father
to feel that his daughter would have a guardian.

Tisza did not long survive the Prince. She died in that Russian house,
every stone of which she hated, even to the Muscovite crucifix over the
door, which her faith, however, forbade her to have removed; she died
making her daughter swear that the last slumber which was coming to her,
gently lulling her to rest after so much suffering, should be slept in
Hungarian soil; and, after the Tzigana's death, this young girl of
twenty, alone with Vogotzine, who accompanied her on the gloomy journey
with evident displeasure, crossed France, went to Vienna, sought in the
Hun