m sure that you do NOT. Moreover, if you were to stay here,
you would lose everything that you possess, and have nothing left with
which to pay your expenses in Paris. Well, good-bye now. I feel sure
that today will see you gone from here."

"Good-bye. But I am NOT going to Paris. Likewise--pardon me--what is to
become of this family? I mean that the affair of the General and Mlle.
Polina will soon be all over the town."

"I daresay; yet, I hardly suppose that that will break the General's
heart. Moreover, Mlle. Polina has a perfect right to live where she
chooses. In short, we may say that, as a family, this family has ceased
to exist."

I departed, and found myself smiling at the Englishman's strange
assurance that I should soon be leaving for Paris. "I suppose he means
to shoot me in a duel, should Polina die. Yes, that is what he intends
to do." Now, although I was honestly sorry for Polina, it is a fact
that, from the moment when, the previous night, I had approached the
gaming-table, and begun to rake in the packets of bank-notes, my love
for her had entered upon a new plane. Yes, I can say that now;
although, at the time, I was barely conscious of it. Was I, then, at
heart a gambler? Did I, after all, love Polina not so very much? No,
no! As God is my witness, I loved her! Even when I was returning home
from Mr. Astley's my suffering was genuine, and my self-reproach
sincere. But presently I was to go through an exceedingly strange and
ugly experience.

I was proceeding to the General's rooms when I heard a door near me
open, and a voice call me by name. It was Mlle.'s mother, the Widow de
Cominges who was inviting me, in her daughter's name, to enter.

I did so; whereupon, I heard a laugh and a little cry proceed from the
bedroom (the pair occupied a suite of two apartments), where Mlle.
Blanche was just arising.

"Ah, c'est lui! Viens, donc, bete! Is it true that you have won a
mountain of gold and silver? J'aimerais mieux l'or."

"Yes," I replied with a smile.

"How much?"

"A hundred thousand florins."

"Bibi, comme tu es bete! Come in here, for I can't hear you where you
are now. Nous ferons bombance, n'est-ce pas?"

Entering her room, I found her lolling under a pink satin coverlet, and
revealing a pair of swarthy, wonderfully healthy shoulders--shoulders
such as one sees in dreams--shoulders covered over with a white cambric
nightgown which, trimmed with lace, stood out, in striking relief,