dier."

Interrogated in her turn, the young girl replied calmly: "Where could
we work better than in this solitude?" For Mademoiselle Stangerson had
already begun to collaborate with her father in his work. It could not
at the time be imagined that her passion for science would lead her so
far as to refuse all the suitors who presented themselves to her for
over fifteen years. So secluded was the life led by the two, father and
daughter, that they showed themselves only at a few official
receptions and, at certain times in the year, in two or three friendly
drawing-rooms, where the fame of the professor and the beauty of
Mathilde made a sensation. The young girl's extreme reserve did not at
first discourage suitors; but at the end of a few years, they tired of
their quest.

One alone persisted with tender tenacity and deserved the name of
"eternal fiance," a name he accepted with melancholy resignation; that
was Monsieur Robert Darzac. Mademoiselle Stangerson was now no longer
young, and it seemed that, having found no reason for marrying at
five-and-thirty, she would never find one. But such an argument
evidently found no acceptance with Monsieur Robert Darzac. He continued
to pay his court--if the delicate and tender attention with which he
ceaselessly surrounded this woman of five-and-thirty could be called
courtship--in face of her declared intention never to marry.

Suddenly, some weeks before the events with which we are occupied, a
report--to which nobody attached any importance, so incredible did it
sound--was spread about Paris, that Mademoiselle Stangerson had at
last consented to "crown" the inextinguishable flame of Monsieur Robert
Darzac! It needed that Monsieur Robert Darzac himself should not deny
this matrimonial rumour to give it an appearance of truth, so unlikely
did it seem to be well founded. One day, however, Monsieur Stangerson,
as he was leaving the Academy of Science, announced that the marriage
of his daughter and Monsieur Robert Darzac would be celebrated in the
privacy of the Chateau du Glandier, as soon as he and his daughter had
put the finishing touches to their report summing up their labours on
the "Dissociation of Matter." The new household would install itself in
the Glandier, and the son-in-law would lend his assistance in the work
to which the father and daughter had dedicated their lives.

The scientific world had barely had time to recover from the effect
of this news, when it