ow do you explain those letters, that
portfolio, which her father produced yesterday?"

"That again was an invention of Marianina; and I may add that this
duplicity assures me that had she remained in the world her future might
have been terrible."

"Am I to suppose that this tale has been told you by Madame de Lanty?"

"Confided to me, monsieur, yes. You yourself saw Madame de Lanty's
desire to stop your explanations yesterday, lest the truth might
appear to her husband. I am requested by her to thank you for your
connivance--passive, of course--in this pious falsehood. She felt that
she could only show her profound gratitude by telling you the whole
truth and relying upon your discretion."

"Where is Mademoiselle Marianina?"

"As Monsieur de Lanty told you, in a convent in Italy. To avoid scandal,
it was thought best to send her to some safe retreat. Her own conduct
will decide her future."

Now what do you think of that history? Does it not seem to you very
improbable? Here are two explanations which have each come into my mind
with the force of a conviction. First, Marianina's brother has just
married into a grand-ducal family of Germany. Immense sacrifices must
have been required of the de Lanty family to make such an alliance.
Was Marianina's _dot_, and the fortune she inherited from that old
grand-uncle, required to pay the costs of that princely union? Secondly,
did Marianina really feel an attachment for me? And did she, in a
girlish way, express it on those letters which she never sent? To punish
her, had her parents sent her to a convent? And to disgust me, and throw
me off the track, had the mother invented this history of another love
in which she seemed to make me play so mortifying a part?

I may add that the intervention of the Abbe Fontanon authorizes such an
interpretation. I have made inquiries about him, and I find he is one
of those mischievous priests who worm themselves into the confidence of
families for their own ends; he has already destroyed the harmony of
one home,--that of Monsieur de Granville, attorney-general of the royal
court of Paris under the Restoration.

As to the truth or falsehood of these suppositions I know nothing, and,
in all probability, shall continue to know nothing. But, as you can
easily understand, the thought of Marianina is a luminous point to
which my eye is forever attached. Shall I love her? Shall I hate her and
despise her? That is the question perpetually