ceeded in
persuading them to burn their important papers and arm themselves. True,
this was useless. They were butchered by the Hussars. One alone, Jean
Dubarry, escaped, and I may say that I saved him; for I discovered him in
the tree up which he had climbed in his mortal terror, took him to a safe
hiding-place, and informed the French authorities in Rastadt. Yes, I saved
his life, and therefore I can say that I began my new life with a good
deed, and did not entirely sell myself to the devil. Since that time I have
led a changeful, stirring existence, often in danger of getting a bullet in
my head, or a rope around my neck. But what has given me courage to deride,
defy all these perils? The thought of my child, my beautiful, beloved
daughter Leonore. I had taken her to Paris, and placed her in one of the
most fashionable boarding schools. I wished to have her trained to be an
aristocratic lady. I had told her all my plans for the future, and as,
like me, she despised the world and human beings, she had approved those
plans and solemnly vowed by the memory of her mother, murdered by want,
famine, and grief, to avenge herself with me upon society--wrest from it
what formerly it had so cruelly denied: wealth, honor, and distinction."

"And I think I have kept my oath," she said earnestly. "I have entered into
all your plans; I have accepted the part which you imposed upon me, and for
three years have played it with success. Baroness von Vernon was as useful
to you in Berlin the last two years, as Baroness de Simonie is now in
Vienna. She aided you in all your plans, entered into your designs,
pitilessly betrayed all who trusted her and whose secrets she stole by
craft, falsehood, and hypocrisy."

"Why did they allow them to be stolen?" he said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Why were they so reckless as to trust a beautiful woman, when experience
teaches that all women lie, deceive, and are incapable of keeping a secret?
They must bear the consequences of their own folly; we need not reproach
ourselves for it."

"I do not reproach myself," she said, "only life bores me. I long for rest,
for peace, for solitude around me, that I may not be so unutterably lonely
within."

"You wish to conceal the truth from me, Leonore," he cried, shrugging his
shoulders, "but I know it. You are in love, my child, and since, as I
suppose, this is your first love, it cannot fail to be very passionate and
transfigure all humanity with a roseat