and, the style, and the correct
orthography, express better than any thing else the transformations
of the Marquise de Javelle. Only it is not signed. The little
working-girl has become prudent: she has much to lose, and fears to
compromise herself.

"A week later, in a laconic note, apparently dictated by an
irresistible passion, she begs my father to come to see her at her
own house. He does so, and finds there a little girl, whom he
believes to be his own child, and whom he at once begins to idolize.

"And that's all. Again he falls under the charm. He ceases to
belong to himself: his former mistress can dispose, at her pleasure,
of his fortune and of his fate.

"But see now what bad luck! The husband takes a notion to become
jealous of my father's visits. In a letter which is a masterpiece
of diplomacy, the lady explains her anxiety.

"'He has suspicions,' she writes; 'and to what extremities might he
not resort, were he to discover the truth!' And with infinite art
she insinuates that the best way to justify his constant presence
is to associate himself with that jealous husband.

"It is with childish haste that my father jumps at the suggestion.
But money is needed. He sells his lands, and everywhere announces
that he has great financial ideas, and that he is going to increase
his fortune tenfold.

"There he is now, partner of his former mistress's husband, engaged
in speculations, director of a company. He thinks that he is doing
an excellent business: he is convinced that he is making lots of
money. Poor honest man! They prove to him, one morning, that he
is ruined, and, what is more, compromised. And this is made to
look so much like the truth, that I interfere myself, and pay the
creditors. We were ruined; but honor was safe. A few weeks later,
my father died broken-hearted."

Mme. de Thaller half rose from her seat with a gesture which
indicated the joy of escaping at last a merciless bore. A glance
from M. de Tregars riveted her to her seat, freezing upon her lips
the jest she was about to utter.

"I have not done yet," he said rudely.

And, without suffering any interruption,

"From this correspondence," he resumed, "resulted the flagrant,
irrefutable proof of a shameful intrigue, long since suspected by
my old friend, General Count de Villegre. It became evident to me
that my poor father had been most shamefully imposed upon by that
mistress, so handsome and so dearly loved,