fore you."

"Farewell, Madame," said Andras, bowing with the deepest respect.

"Then, you are really going, Monsieur? Indeed, I am afraid he won't come
back. But please tell me what I shall say to him your errand was. If it
is some good news, I should be so glad, so glad, to be the first to tell
it to him. You are, perhaps, although you say not, the editor of some
paper which is about to be started. He spoke to me, the other day, of a
new paper. He would like to be a dramatic critic. That is his dream, he
says. Is it that, Monsieur?"

"No, Madame; and, to tell you the truth, there is no longer any need for
me to see your husband. But I do not regret my visit; on the contrary--I
have met a noble woman, and I offer her my deepest respect."

Poor, unhappy girl! She was not used to such words; she blushingly
faltered her thanks, and seemed quite grieved at the departure of this
man, from whom she had expected some good luck for her husband.

"The life of Paris has its secrets!" thought Zilah, as he slowly
descended the stairs, which he had mounted in such a different frame of
mind, so short a time before.

When he reached the lower landing, he looked up, and saw the blond head
of the young woman, leaning over above, and the little hands of the
children clutching the damp railing.

Then Prince Andras Zilah took off his hat, and again bowed low.

On his way from the Rue Rochechouart to his hotel he thought of the
thin, pale face of the Parisian grisette, who would slowly pine away,
deceived and disdained by the man whose name she bore. Such a fine name!
Puck or Gavroche!

"And she would die rather than soil that name. This Jacquemin has found
this pearl of great price, and hid it away under the gutters of Paris!
And I--I have encountered--what? A miserable woman who betrayed me! Ah!
men and women are decidedly the victims of chance; puppets destined to
bruise one another!"

On entering his hotel, he found Yanski Varhely there, with an anxious
look upon his rugged old face.

"Well?"

"Well-nothing!"

And Zilah told his friend what he had seen.

"A droll city, this Paris!" he said, in conclusion. "I see that it is
necessary to go up into the garrets to know it well."

He took a sheet of paper, sat down, and wrote as follows:

MONSIEUR:--You have published an article in regard to Prince Andras
Zilah, which is an outrage. A devoted friend of the Prince had
resolved to make you pay dearly for it; but t