penting of them."

"Perhaps that is the reason she is so amusing," said Bertha.

Edmondstone answered her with gentle mournfulness.

"What!" he said. "Have you begun to say such things? You too, Bertha"--

The laugh with which she stopped him was both light and hard.

"Where is M. Villefort?" she asked. "I have actually not seen him for
fifteen minutes. Is it possible that Madame de Castro has fascinated him
into forgetting me?"

Edmondstone went to his hotel that night in a melancholy mood. He even
lay awake to think what a dreary mistake his cousin's marriage was. She
had been such a tender and easily swayed little soul as a girl, and now
it really seemed as if she was hardening into a woman of the world.
In the old times he had been wont to try his sonnets upon Bertha as a
musician tries his chords upon his most delicate instrument. Even now
he remembered certain fine, sensitive expressions of hers which had
thrilled him beyond measure.

"How could she marry such a fellow as that--how could she?" he groaned.
"What does it mean? It must mean something."

He was pale and heavy-eyed when he wandered round to the Villeforts'
the following morning. M. Villefort was sitting with Bertha and reading
aloud. He stopped to receive their visitor punctiliously and inquire
after his health.

"M. Edmondstone cannot have slept well," he remarked.

"I did not sleep at all," Edmondstone answered, "and naturally have a
headache."

Bertha pointed to a wide lounge of the _pouf_ order.

"Then go to sleep now," she said; "M. Villefort will read. When I have a
headache he often reads me to sleep, and I am always better on awaking."

Involuntarily Edmondstone half frowned. Absurdly enough, he resented in
secret this amiability on the part of M. Villefort toward his own wife.
He was quite prepared to be severe upon the reading, but was surprised
to be compelled to acknowledge that M. Villefort read wondrously well,
and positively with hints of delicate perception. His voice was full and
yet subtly flexible. Edmondstone tried to protest against this also, but
uselessly. Finally he was soothed, and from being fretfully wide-awake
suddenly passed into sleep as Bertha had commanded. How long his slumber
lasted he could not have told. All at once he found himself aroused and
wide-awake as ever. His headache had departed; his every sense seemed to
have gained keenness. M. Villefort's voice had ceased, and for a few
seconds utter, dea