e thought of this, his habitual contempt of the
world and its opinion returned. What had the world done for him? And if he
had felt no obligation to consult it in his poverty, why need he bend to
any such slavery in the coming days of his splendour? He stopped suddenly
at the corner of the street in which the Polish girl lived. She lodged,
with a little sister who was still too young to work, in a room she hired
of a respectable Bohemian shoemaker. The latter's wife was of the
sour-good kind, whose chief talent lies in giving their kind actions a
hard-hearted appearance.

"Vjera," said the Count, earnestly, "I have been talking a great deal
about myself. You must forgive me, for the news I have received is so very
important and makes such a sudden difference in my prospects. But you have
not given me the answer I want to my question. Will you be my wife, Vjera,
and come with me out of this wretched existence to share my happy life and
to make it happier? Will you?"

His tone was so sincere and loving that it produced a little storm of
evanescent happiness in the girl's heart, and the tears started to her
eyes and stained her sallow, waxen cheeks.

"Ah, if it could only be true!" she exclaimed in a voice more than half
full of hope, as she quickly brushed away the drops.

"But it is true, indeed it is," answered the Count. "Oh, Vjera, do you
think I would deceive you? Do you think I could tell you a story in which
there is no truth whatever? Do not think that of me, Vjera."

The tears broke out afresh, but from a different source. For some seconds
she could not speak.

"Why do you cry so bitterly?" he asked, not understanding at all what was
passing. "I swear to you it is all true--"

"It is not that--it is not that," cried Vjera. "I know--I know that you
believe it--and I love you so very much--"

"But then, I do not understand," said the Count in a low voice that
expressed his pitiful perplexity. "How can I not believe it, when it is
all in the letters? And why should you not believe it, too? Besides, Vjera
dear, it will all be quite clear to-morrow. Of course--well, I can
understand that having known me poor so long, it must seem strange to you
to think of me as very rich. But I shall not be another man, for that. I
shall always be the same for you, Vjera, always the same."

"Yes, always the same," sighed the girl under her breath.

"Yes, and so, if you love me to-day, you will love me just as well
to-morro