d her happiness, and
condemned her either to a silence as culpable as a lie, or to an avowal
as cruel as a suicide.

The night passed and the day came at last, when it was necessary for
Marsa to become the wife of Prince Andras, or to confess to him her
guilt. She wished that she had told him all, now that she had not the
courage to do so. She had accustomed herself to the idea that a woman is
not necessarily condemned to love no more because she has encountered a
coward who has abused her love. She was in an atmosphere of illusion and
chimera; what was passing about her did not even seem to exist. Her maids
dressed her, and placed upon her dark hair the bridal veil: she half
closed her eyes and murmured:

"It is a beautiful dream."

A dream, and yet a reality, consoling as a ray of light after a hideous
nightmare. Those things which were false, impossible, a lie, a
phantasmagoria born of a fever, were Michel Menko, the past years, the
kisses of long ago, the threats of yesterday, the bayings of the
infuriated dogs at that shadow which did not exist.

General Vogotzine, in a handsome uniform, half suffocated in his high
vest, and with a row of crosses upon his breast--the military cross of
St. George, with its red and black ribbon; the cross of St. Anne, with
its red ribbon; all possible crosses--was the first to knock at his
niece's door, his sabre trailing upon the floor.

"Who is it?" said Marsa.

"I, Vogotzine."

And, permission being given him, he entered the room.

The old soldier walked about his niece, pulling his moustache, as if he
were conducting an inspection. He found Marsa charming. Pale as her white
robe, with Tizsa's opal agraffe at her side, ready to clasp the bouquet
of flowers held by one of her maids, she had never been so exquisitely
beautiful; and Vogotzine, who was rather a poor hand at turning a
compliment, compared her to a marble statue.

"How gallant you are this morning, General," she said, her heart bursting
with emotion.

She waved away, with a brusque gesture, the orange-flowers which her maid
was about to attach to her corsage.

"No," she said. "Not that! Roses."

"But, Mademoiselle--"

"Roses," repeated Marsa. "And for my hair white rosebuds also."

At this, the old General risked another speech.

"Do you think orange-blossoms are too vulgar, Marsa? By Jove! They don't
grow in the ditches, though!"

And he laughed loudly at what he considered wit. But a frowning glan