s of one of the richest families of Prague; a pretty
but unintelligent girl, not understanding at all the character of her
husband; detesting Vienna and Paris, and gradually exacting from Menko
that he should live at Prague, near her family, whose ancient ideas and
prejudices and inordinate love of money displeased the young Hungarian.
He was left free to act as he pleased; his wife would willingly give up a
part of her dowry to regain her independence. It was only just, she said
insolently, that, having been mistaken as to the tastes of the man she
had married for reasons of convenience rather than of inclination, she
should pay for her stupidity. Pay! The word made the blood mount to
Menko's face. If he had not been rich, as he was, he would have hewn
stone to gain his daily bread rather than touch a penny of her money. He
shook off the yoke the obstinate daughter of the Bohemian gentleman would
have imposed upon him, and departed, brusquely breaking a union in which
both husband and wife so terribly perceived their error.

Marsa might have known of all this if she had, for a moment, doubted
Menko's word. But how was she to suspect that the young Count was capable
of a lie or of concealing such a secret? Besides, she knew hardly any one
at Pau, as her physicians had forbidden her any excitement; at the foot
of the Pyrenees, she lived, as at Maisons-Lafitte, an almost solitary
life; and Michel Menko had been during that winter, which he now recalled
to Marsa, speaking of it as of a lost Eden, her sole companion, the only
guest of the house she inhabited with Vogotzine in the neighborhood of
the castle.

Poor Marsa, enthusiastic, inexperienced, her heart enamored with
chivalrous audacity, intrepid courage, all the many virtues which were
those of Hungary herself; Marsa, her mind imbued from her infancy with
the almost fantastic recitals of the war of independence, and later, with
her readings and reflections; Marsa, full of the stories of the heroic
past-must necessarily have been the dupe of the first being who, coming
into her life, was the personal representative of the bravery and charm
of her race. So, when she encountered one day Michel Menko, she was
invincibly attracted toward him by something proud, brave, and
chivalrous, which was characteristic of the manly beauty of the young
Hungarian. She was then twenty, very ignorant of life, her great Oriental
eyes seeing nothing of stern reality; but, with all her gent