his banker's when he heard the news spoken of as the latest
item from American Paris, and his start and exclamation of disgust drew
forth some cynical after-comment from men who envied him.

"Who?" he said, with indiscreet impatience. "That undersized sphynx of a
Villefort? Faugh!"

But insignificant though he might be, it was M. Villefort who had
won, and if he was nothing more, he was at least a faithful attendant.
Henceforth, those who saw his wife invariably saw him also,--driving
with her in her carriage, riding with her courageously if ungracefully,
standing or seated near her in the shadow of her box at the Nouvelle
Opera, silent, impassive, grave, noticeable only through the contrast he
afforded to her girlish beauty and bloom.

"Always there!" commented a sharp American belle of mature years, "like
an ugly little conscience."

Edmondstone's first meeting with his cousin after his return to Paris
was accidental. He had rather put off visiting her, and one night,
entering a crowded room, he found himself standing behind a girl's light
figure and staring at an abundance of reddish-brown hair. When, almost
immediately the pretty head to which this hair belonged turned with
a slow, yet involuntary-looking movement toward him, he felt that he
became excited without knowing why.

"Ah, Bertha!" he exclaimed.

She smiled a little and held out her hand, and he immediately became
conscious of M. Villefort being quite near and regarding him seriously.

It was the perverseness of fate that he should find in Bertha Villefort
even more than he had once seen in Bertha Trent, and there had been
a time when he had seen a great deal in Bertha Trent. In the Trent
household he had been a great favorite. No social evening or family
festivity had seemed complete without his presence. The very children
had felt that they had a claim upon his good-humor, and his tendency
to break forth into whimsical frolic. Good Mrs. Trent had been wont to
scold him and gossip with him. He had read his sonnets and metaphysical
articles to Bertha, and occasionally to the rest; in fact, his footing
in the family was familiar and firmly established. But since her
marriage Bertha had become a little incomprehensible, and on that
account a little more interesting. He was sure she had developed, but
could not make out in what direction. He found occasion to reproach her
sometimes with the changes he found in her.

"There are times when I hardly kno