t to press her
with questions. No friendship gives a man the right to ask the
confidence of a young girl, and, moreover, it was evident from her few
words and from the blush which accompanied them that this was a delicate
subject. If any one were to speak to her, it must be her father. As far
as I knew, there was no reason why she should not love her cousin Paul,
if she admired him half as much as her brother was inclined to do.

"There is only one thing about him which I cannot understand," she
continued, after a short pause. "He seems not to care in the least for
his mother; and yet," she added thoughtfully, "I cannot believe that he
is heartless. I suppose it is because she did not treat him well when he
was a child. I cannot think of any other reason."

"No," I echoed mechanically, "I cannot think of any other reason."

And indeed I could not. I had known nothing of his unhappy childhood
before Hermione had told me of it, and though that did not afford a
sufficient explanation of his evident indifference in regard to his
mother, it was better than nothing. The whole situation seemed to me to
be wrapped in impenetrable mystery, and I was beginning to despair of
ever understanding what was going on about me. John Carvel treated me
most affectionately, and delighted in entrapping me into the library to
talk about books; but he scarcely ever referred to Madame Patoff. Cutter
would walk or ride with me for hours, talking over the extraordinary
cases of insanity he had met with in his experience; but he never would
give me the least information in regard to the events which had preceded
the accident at Weissenstein. I was entirely in the dark.

A catastrophe was soon to occur, however, which led to my acquaintance
with all the details of Alexander's disappearance in Stamboul. I will
tell what happened as well as I can from what was afterwards told me by
the persons most concerned.

A week after my conversation with Hermione, the train was fired which
led to a very remarkable concatenation of circumstances. You have
foreseen that Paul would fall in love with his beautiful young cousin.
Chrysophrasia foresaw it from the first moment of his appearance at
Carvel Place, with that keen scent for romance which sometimes
characterizes romantic old maids. If I were telling you a love story, I
could make a great deal out of Paul's courtship. But this is the history
of the extraordinary things which befell Paul Patoff, and for t