to a close now,
however: but no sign of the belt. Still, Tom had honour enough in him to
be silent on the point, even to Claude.

"By the by, have you heard from the wanderers this week?"

"I heard from Sabina this morning. Marie is very poorly, I fear. They
have been at Kissingen, bathing; and are going to Bertrich: somebody has
recommended the baths there."

"Bertrich! Where's Bertrich?"

"The most delicious little nest of a place, half way up the Moselle,
among the volcano craters."

"Don't know it. Have they found that Yankee?"

"No."

"Why, I thought Sabina had a whole detective force of pets and proteges,
from Boulogne to Rome."

"Well, she has at least heard of him at Baden; and then again at
Stuttgard: but he has escaped them as yet."

"And poor Marie is breaking her heart all the while? I'll tell you what,
Claude, it will be well for him if he escapes me as well as them."

"What do you mean?"

"I certainly shan't go to the East without shaking hands once more with
Marie and Sabina; and if in so doing I pass that fellow, it's a pity if
I don't have a snap shot at him."

"Tom! Tom! I had hoped your duelling days were over."

"They will be, over, when one can get the law to punish such puppies;
but not till then. Hang the fellow! What business had he with her at
all, if he didn't intend to marry her?"

"I tell you, as I told you before, it is she who will not marry him."

"And yet she's breaking her heart for him. I can see it all plain
enough, Claude. She has found him out only too late. I know him--
luxurious, selfish, blaze; would give a thousand dollars to-morrow, I
believe, like the old Roman, for a new pleasure: and then amuses himself
with her till he breaks her heart! Of course she won't many him: because
she knows that if he found out her Quadroon blood--ah, that's it! I'll
lay my life he has found it out already, and that is why he has bolted!"

Claude had no answer to give. That talk at the Exhibition made it only
too probable.

"You think so yourself, I see! Very well. You know that whatever I have
been to others, that girl has nothing against me."

"Nothing against you? Why, she owes you honour, life, everything."

"Never mind that. Only when I take a fancy to begin, I'll carry it
through. I took to that girl, for poor Wyse's sake; and I'll behave by
her to the last as he would wish; and he who insults her, insults me. I
won't go out of my way to find Stangrave: but if I do, I'