usions
on these points, but she said to herself:

"I will love him so much, that he will end by loving me."

Hence all her misfortunes. Her existence might have been tolerable, if
she had not loved her husband so much; but she loved him too much. She
had only succeeded in wearying him by her importunities and tenderness.
He returned to his former life, which had been most irregular. Fifteen
years had passed thus, in a long martyrdom, supported by Madame de
Lavardens with all the appearance of passive resignation. Nothing ever
could distract her from, or cure her of, the love which was destroying
her.

M. de Lavardens died in 1869; he left a son fourteen years of age, in
whom were already visible all the defects and all the good qualities of
his father. Without being seriously affected, the fortune of Madame de
Lavardens was slightly compromised, slightly diminished. Madame de
Lavardens sold her mansion in Paris, retired to the country, where she
lived with strict economy, and devoted herself to the education of her
son.

But here again grief and disappointment awaited her. Paul de Lavardens
was intelligent, amiable, and affectionate, but thoroughly rebellious
against any constraint, and any species of work. He drove to despair
three or four tutors who vainly endeavored to force something serious
into his head, went up to the military college of Saint-Cyr, failed at
the examination, and began to devour in Paris, with all the haste and
folly possible, 200,000 or 300,000 francs.

That done, he enlisted in the first regiment of the Chasseurs d'Afrique,
had in the very beginning of his military career the good fortune to make
one of an expeditionary column sent into the Sahara, distinguished
himself, soon became quartermaster, and at the end of three years was
about to be appointed sub-lieutenant, when he was captivated by a young
person who played the 'Fille de Madame Angot', at the theatre in Algiers.

Paul had finished his time, he quitted the service, and went to Paris
with his charmer . . . . then it was a dancer . . . . then it was an
actress . . . . then a circus-rider. He tried life in every form. He led
the brilliant and miserable existence of the unoccupied.

But it was only three or four months that he passed in Paris each year.
His mother made him an allowance Of 30,000 francs, and had declared to
him that never, while she lived, should he have another penny before his
marriage. He knew his mother, he kne