irtues even when committing that horrible sin.--The
story is now that my wife went abroad in a ship that was wrecked; she
is supposed to be dead. I have lived alone for seven years!--Enough for
this evening, Maurice. We will talk of my situation when I have grown
used to the idea of speaking of it to you. When we suffer from a
chronic disease, it needs time to become accustomed to improvement. That
improvement often seems to be merely another aspect of the complaint.'

"I went to bed greatly agitated; for the mystery, far from being
explained, seemed to me more obscure than ever. I foresaw some strange
drama indeed, for I understood that there could be no vulgar difference
between the woman that Count could choose and such a character as his.
The events which had driven the Countess to leave a man so noble, so
amiable, so perfect, so loving, so worthy to be loved, must have been
singular, to say the least. M. de Grandville's remark had been like a
torch flung into the caverns over which I had so long been walking; and
though the flame lighted them but dimly, my eyes could perceive their
wide extent! I could imagine the Count's sufferings without knowing
their depths or their bitterness. That sallow face, those parched
temples, those overwhelming studies, those moments of absentmindedness,
the smallest details of the life of this married bachelor, all stood out
in luminous relief during the hour of mental questioning, which is,
as it were, the twilight before sleep, and to which any man would have
given himself up, as I did.

"Oh! how I loved my poor master! He seemed to me sublime. I read a poem
of melancholy, I saw perpetual activity in the heart I had accused of
being torpid. Must not supreme grief always come at last to stagnation?
Had this judge, who had so much in his power, ever revenged himself? Was
he feeding himself on her long agony? Is it not a remarkable thing in
Paris to keep anger always seething for ten years? What had Octave done
since this great misfortune--for the separation of husband and wife is
a great misfortune in our day, when domestic life has become a social
question, which it never was of old?

"We allowed a few days to pass on the watch, for great sorrows have a
diffidence of their own; but at last, one evening, the Count said in a
grave voice:

"'Stay.'

"This, as nearly as may be, is his story.

"'My father had a ward, rich and lovely, who was sixteen at the time
when I came back