ul to see how he spends his gold;
he has shrunk into a mean and niggardly expenditure, and complains
of reverse and poverty, in order to excuse himself to his wife for
debarring her the enjoyments which she anticipated from the Money Bags
she had married. A vague consciousness of retribution has awakened
remorse, to add to his other stings. And the remorse coming from
superstition, not religion (sent from below, not descending from above),
brings with it none of the consolations of a genuine repentance. He
never seeks to atone, never dreams of some redeeming good action. His
riches flow around him, spreading wider and wider--out of his own reach.

The Count di Peschiera was not deceived in the calculations which
had induced him to affect repentance, and establish a claim upon his
kinsman. He received from the generosity of the Duke di Serrano an
annuity not disproportioned to his rank, and no order from his court
forbade his return to Vienna. But, in the very summer that followed his
visit to Lansmere, his career came to an abrupt close. At Baden-Baden
he paid court to a wealthy and accomplished Polish widow; and his fine
person and terrible repute awed away all rivals, save a young Frenchman,
as daring as himself, and much more in love. A challenge was given and
accepted. Peschiera appeared on the fatal ground, with his customary
sang-froid, humming an opera air, and looking so diabolically gay that
his opponent's nerves were affected in spite of his courage; and the
Frenchman's trigger going off before he had even taken aim, to his own
ineffable astonishment, he shot the count through the heart, dead.

Beatrice di Negra lived for some years after her brother's death in
strict seclusion, lodging within a convent, though she did not take
the veil, as she at first proposed. In fact, the more she saw of the
sisterhood, the more she found that human regrets and human passions
(save in some rarely gifted natures) find their way through the barred
gates and over the lofty walls. Finally, she took up her abode in Rome,
where she is esteemed for a life not only marked by strict propriety,
but active benevolence. She cannot be prevailed on to accept from the
duke more than a fourth of the annuity that had been bestowed on her
brother; but she has few wants, save those of charity; and when charity
is really active, it can do so much with so little gold! She is not
known in the gayer circles of the city; but she gathers round her