nces when he imagined he was working for his coming
race, and the home which he had prepared for his great-grandchildren was
the incarnation of splendor and luxury.

Upon the arrival of Norbert and his wife, they could almost fancy that
they had only quitted their town house a few days before, so perfect
were all the arrangements. Had Norbert been left to act for himself, he
might have felt a little embarrassed, but his trusty servant Jean aided
him with his advice, and the establishment was kept on a footing to do
honor to the traditions of the house of Champdoce. Everything can be
procured in Paris for money, and Jean had filled the ante-rooms with
lackeys, the kitchens and offices with cooks and scullions, and the
stables with grooms, coachmen, and horses, while every description of
carriage stood in the place appointed for their reception.

But all this bustle and excitement did not seem in the eyes of the young
Duchess to impart life to the house. It appeared to her dead and empty
as a sepulchre. It seemed as if she were living beneath the weight of
some vague and indefinable terror, some hideous and hidden spectre which
might at any moment start from its hiding place and drive her mad with
the alarm it excited. She had not a soul in whom she could confide. She
had been forbidden by Norbert to renew her acquaintance with her old
Parisian friends, for Norbert did not consider them of sufficiently good
family, and in addition he had used the pretext of the deep mourning
they were in to put off receiving visitors for a twelvemonth at least.
She felt herself alone and solitary, and, in this frame of mind, how was
it possible for her not to let her thoughts wander once again to George
de Croisenois. Had her father been willing, she might have been his
wife now, and have been wandering hand in hand in some sequestered
spot beneath the clear blue sky of Italy. _He_ had loved her, while
Norbert----.

Norbert was leading one of those mad, headstrong lives which have but
two conclusions--ruin or suicide. His name had been put up for election
at a fashionable club by his uncle, the Chevalier de Septraor, as soon
as he arrived in Paris. He had been elected at once, being looked on as
a decided acquisition to the list of members. He bore one of the oldest
names to be found among the French nobility, while his fortune--gigantic
as it was--had been magnified threefold by the tongue of common report.
He was received with open ar