s he had
worked hard that he might be able to send home enough to support his
brother, to whom he was devotedly attached, and from whom his letters
generously concealed all his trials and disappointments.

Then came the failure of the great Halmer house; the widow was ruined,
and the sudden shock affected Louis Gaston's brain. He had no mental
energy left to resist the disease which attacked him, and he died in
Bengal, whither he had gone to try and realize the remnants of his
wife's property. The dear, good fellow had deposited with a banker
a first sum of three hundred thousand francs, which was to go to his
brother, but the banker was involved in the Halmer crash, and thus their
last resource failed them.

Louis' widow, the handsome woman whom you took for your rival, arrived
in Paris with two children--your nephews--and an empty purse, her
mother's jewels having barely sufficed to pay for bringing them over.
The instructions which Louis Gaston had given the banker for sending
the money to his brother enabled the widow to find your husband's former
home. As Gaston had disappeared without leaving any address, Mme. Louis
Gaston was directed to d'Arthez, the only person who could give any
information about him.

D'Arthez was the more ready to relieve the young woman's pressing needs,
because Louis Gaston, at the time of his marriage four years before, had
written to make inquiries about his brother from the famous author, whom
he knew to be one of his friends. The Captain had consulted d'Arthez as
to the best means of getting the money safely transferred to Marie, and
d'Arthez had replied, telling him that Gaston was now a rich man through
his marriage with the Baronne de Macumer. The personal beauty, which
was the mother's rich heritage to her sons, had saved them both--one
in India, the other in Paris--from destitution. A touching story, is it
not?

D'Arthez naturally wrote, after a time, to tell your husband of the
condition of his sister-in-law and her children, informing him, at the
same time, of the generous intentions of the Indian Gaston towards his
Paris brother, which an unhappy chance had frustrated. Gaston, as you
may imagine, hurried off to Paris. Here is the first ride accounted for.
During the last five years he had saved fifty thousand francs out of the
income you forced him to accept, and this sum he invested in the public
funds under the names of his two nephews, securing them each, in
this way, a