isen ever since."

"You are wrong, Beauchamp. Not like a balloon. Rather like a planet.
Maximilian Morrel is one of the most gallant young men in the French
army, and step by step, from rank to rank, has he hewn his own path with
his good sabre, in a strong hand, nerved by a brave heart and proud
ambition, to the position he now holds."

"His name I see among the immortals in the dispatch of this morning.
Well, well, Morrel is a splendid fellow, no doubt, but it's a splendid
thing to have friends in the War Office, nevertheless, who will give
that splendor a chance to shine--will plant the lighted candle in a
candlestick, and not smother its beams under a bushel."

"Morrel has now been in Africa five whole years," said the Secretary--"a
few months only excepted after his marriage with Villefort's fair
daughter, Valentine, (as was said) when he was indulged with a furlough
for his honeymoon."

"She is not in Paris?" asked Beauchamp.

"No; she leads the life of a perfect recluse with her child, during her
husband's absence, at his villa somewhere in the south--near Marseilles,
where the department forwards her letters."

"Yet she is said to be a magnificent woman," remarked the Count.

"Wonderful!" cried Beauchamp. "A magnificent woman and a recluse!"

"Oh! but it was a love-match of the most devoted species, you must
remember."

"True; she was to have married our friend, Franz d'Epinay."

"And died to save herself from that fate, I suppose--and afterwards was
resurrected and blessed Morrel with her hand and heart, and the most
exquisite person that even a jaded voluptuary could covet.
Happy--happy--happy man!"

"Apropos of dying," said the Secretary, "do you remember how fast people
died at M. de Villefort's house about that time?"

"Horrible! A whole family of two or three generations, one after the
other! First M. and Madame de Saint-Meran--then Barrois, the old servant
of M. Noirtier--then Valentine, and, last of all, Madame de Villefort
and Edward, her idol. No wonder that M. le Procureur du Roi himself went
mad under such an accumulation of horrors! By the by, Debray, is M. de
Villefort still an inmate of the Maison Royale de Charenton?"

"I know nothing to the contrary," replied the Secretary, who had resumed
his paper, and to whom the subject seemed not altogether agreeable. "He
is an incurable." Then, as if to turn the subject, he continued:
"Apropos of the immortals of Algeria, here is a name that