le, swimming upon the high tide of fortune,
prospering with our cards, and with the still greater matrimonial game
which we were playing; and we were quite unaware of the mine under our
feet.

Before a month was passed, the Jew began to pester Magny. He presented
himself at X--, and asked for further interest-hush-money; otherwise
he must sell the emerald. Magny got money for him; the Princess again
befriended her dastardly lover. The success of the first demand only
rendered the second more exorbitant. I know not how much money was
extorted and paid on this unluckly emerald: but it was the cause of the
ruin of us all.

One night we were keeping our table as usual at the Countess of
Liliengarten's, and Magny being in cash somehow, kept drawing out
rouleau after rouleau, and playing with his common ill success. In
the middle of the play a note was brought into him, which he read, and
turned very pale on perusing; but the luck was against him, and looking
up rather anxiously at the clock, he waited for a few more turns of the
cards, when having, I suppose, lost his last rouleau, he got up with a
wild oath that scared some of the polite company assembled, and left
the room. A great trampling of horses was heard without; but we were
too much engaged with our business to heed the noise, and continued our
play.

Presently some one came into the play-room and said to the Countess,
'Here is a strange story! A Jew has been murdered in the Kaiserwald.
Magny was arrested when he went out of the room.' All the party broke
up on hearing this strange news, and we shut up our bank for the night.
Magny had been sitting by me during the play (my uncle dealt and I paid
and took the money), and, looking under the chair, there was a crumpled
paper, which I took up and read. It was that which had been delivered to
him, and ran thus:--'If you have done it, take the orderly's horse who
brings this. It is the best of my stable. There are a hundred louis in
each holster, and the pistols are loaded. Either course lies open to
you if you know what I mean. In a quarter of an hour I shall know our
fate--whether I am to be dishonoured and survive you, whether you are
guilty and a coward, or whether you are still worthy of the name of

'M.'

This was in the handwriting of the old General de Magny; and my uncle
and I, as we walked home at night, having made and divided with the
Countess Liliengarten no inconsiderable profits that night, felt