ation. The horrible thing is that, as it turned out, the old man
had also an eye to the weather. He had hoped to stave off bankruptcy by
marrying the prosperous singer. He succeeded in getting neither her
money nor her heart, for she left him within a year and returned to
Paris.

Here, then, we find her again, with her rival Sontag out of the way,
and Sontag's lover to console. She furnished him with contrast enough,
for she differed from Sontag in these respects, that she was only
twenty-two, she was a contralto, dark and Spanish, and was known to be
married. Her consolation of De Beriot was complete. They lived together
the rest of her life, touring in concerts occasionally, with enormous
financial success, she creating an immortal name as an operatic singer,
and he as a violinist. In 1831 they built a palatial home in the
suburbs of Brussels, where they spent the time when they were not
travelling. She bore him a son and a daughter, the latter dying in
infancy.

Meanwhile, she was trying to divorce her husband, who was now living in
Paris. The freedom was a long while coming, and it was 1836 before the
Gordian knot was cut. On March 26th of the same year, she and De Beriot
were married. The very next month, in London, she was thrown from a
horse and more severely injured than she realised. As soon as she
could, she resumed her concerts; brain-fever attacked her. She died at
the age of twenty-eight.

Two hours after her death, De Beriot hastened away to make sure of the
possession of the wealth this young woman had already heaped up. He did
not wait for the funeral, and all Europe was scandalised. But it is
claimed in his defence that he had been devoted to her, and during her
illness had never left her side, and that his mercenary haste was due
to his fear that a moment's delay might give Monsieur Malibran a chance
to claim her property, and thus rob the child she had borne De Beriot
of his inheritance. Those who know the peculiar attitude the French law
takes toward the property of a wife, can understand the difficulty of
the situation.

In any case, the child was saved from poverty or from the necessity of
professionalism in later life, though he was a distinguished pianist.
As for De Beriot, after the success of his mission he returned to the
country home and remained in seclusion, not playing again in public for
one year. Two years later he married Fraeulein Huber, the daughter of a
Vienna magistrate and the