tion--if he could have so abased
himself--would have been useless. How could he hope to conquer by these
words the distrust capable of creating such suspicions?

He confusedly divined the origin, and understood that this distrust,
envenomed by remembrance of the past, was incurable.

The sentiment of the irreparable, of revolted pride, indignation, and
even injustice, had shown him but one refuge, and it was this to which he
had fled.

The Comtesse de Camors and Madame de Tecle learned only through their
servants and the public of the removal of the Count to a country-house he
had rented near the Chateau Campvallon. After writing ten letters--all of
which he had burned--he had decided to maintain an absolute silence. They
sometimes trembled at the thought he might take away his son. He thought
of it; but it was a kind of vengeance that he disdained.

This move, which publicly proclaimed the relations existing between M. de
Camors and the Marquise, made a sensation in the Parisian world, where it
was soon known. It revived again the strange recollections and rumors
that all remembered. Camors heard of them, but despised them.

His pride, which was then exasperated by a savage irritation, was
gratified at defying public opinion, which had been so easily duped
before. He knew there was no situation one could not impose upon the
world providing one had wealth and audacity. From this day he resumed
energetically the love of his life, his habits, his labors, and his
thoughts for the future. Madame de Campvallon was the confidante of all
his projects, and added her own care to them; and both occupied
themselves in organizing in advance their mutual existence, hereafter
blended forever. The personal fortune of M. de Camors, united to that of
the Marquise, left no limits to the fancies which their imagination could
devise. They arranged to live separately at Paris, though the Marquise's
salon should be common to both; but their double influence would shine at
the same time, and they would be the social centre of a sovereign
influence. The Marquise would reign by the splendor of her person over
the society of letters, art, and politics. Camors would there find the
means of action which could not fail to accomplish the high destiny to
which his talent and his ambition called him.

This was the life that had appeared to them in the origin of their
liaison as a sort of ideal of human happiness--that of two superior
beings, who