compliment when people said
to her that she was as white as death."

"She must have eaten lots of raw coffee and chalk, I'll be bound."

"Don't interrupt, I want to tell a tale, not circulate scandal."

"I am all attention."

"Sometimes she carried her bizarre ideas so far as to appear at dances
in a white dress trimmed with black, and with a myrtle wreath on her
head, just as the dead are wont to be arrayed for the tomb. By way of a
breast-pin she used to wear a small skeleton's head carved out of
mother-o'-pearl, and she boasted that her gloves had been taken out of
the coffin of a deceased friend."

"Shall I be very unfeeling if I allow myself to smile?"

"Pray do nothing of the kind, or you'll be very sorry in a moment."

"Ah, ha! I know a man who fell in love with this girl."

"All the more reason to be serious."

"And subsequently that man got the better of his passion altogether."

"Do not be too sure."

"Too sure! Why, I have been studying the whole case these four years."

"As defendant?"

"Defendant, indeed! I wanted to make that girl my wife. Oh! you were
quite a little thing then, a wee wee little lass, scarcely so big as my
finger. You were learning to dance in those days and had not yet
appeared upon the scene."

"And you deserted that girl on the eve of the wedding!"

"I had reasons for doing so, of which nobody, I fancy, is aware."

"They said at the time that you found out that Benjamin Hetfalusy, the
girl's father, was over head and ears in debt, and that you withdrew for
that reason."

"I did not take the trouble to contradict the rumour, it was so like
General Vertessy to marry for money."

"And the Hetfalusy family became of course your bitterest enemies ever
afterwards?"

"They have insulted, but they cannot wound me."

"And you forgave them for it?"

"I never troubled my head about them."

"Say that you forgive them."

"I don't want to flatter myself. I simply forgot them."

"Very well, now let us go on with our story. This poor family has had
many heavy visitations of late."

Vertessy's face grew very grave.

"My dear, I am afraid your skein of silk will break asunder on my arms
if you go on with such stories. Don't speak to me of the calamities of
the Hetfalusy family. I am not at all interested in the happiness of
these people, and if they are wretched I don't want to hear anything
about it. They seem to have always been bent upon tempting Fate, so that
it is