lier's acute perception that
something had happened to powerfully affect Angela; but he possessed
sufficient delicacy of feeling not to seek for a solution of the
mystery, which it was evident she desired to conceal from him. He
contented himself with depriving any dangerous rival of his power by
expediting the marriage; and he made all arrangements for its
celebration with such fine tact, and such a sympathetic appreciation of
his fair bride's situation and sentiments, that she saw in them a new
proof of the good and amiable qualities of her husband.

"The Chevalier's behaviour towards Angela showed him attentive to her
slightest wish, and exhibited that sincere esteem which springs from
the purest affection; hence her memory of Duvernet soon vanished
entirely from her mind. The first cloud that dimmed the bright heaven
of her happiness was the illness and death of old Vertua.

"Since the night when he had lost all his fortune at the Chevalier's
bank he had never touched a card, but during the last moments of his
life play seemed to have taken complete possession of his soul. Whilst
the priest who had come to administer to him the consolation of the
Church ere he died, was speaking to him of heavenly things, he lay with
his eyes closed, murmuring between his teeth, '_perd_, _gagne_,' whilst
his trembling half-dead hands went through the motions of dealing
through a _taille_, of drawing the cards. Both Angela and the Chevalier
bent over him and spoke to him in the tenderest manner, but it was of
no use; he no longer seemed to know them, nor even to be aware of their
presence. With a deep-drawn sigh '_gagne_,' he breathed his last.

"In the midst of her distressing grief Angela could not get rid of an
uncomfortable feeling of awe at the way in which the old man had died.
She again saw in vivid shape the picture of that terrible night when
she had first seen the Chevalier as a most hardened and reprobate
gambler; and the fearful thought entered her mind that he might again,
in scornful mockery of her, cast aside his mask of goodness and appear
in his original fiendish character, and begin to pursue his old course
of life once more.

"And only too soon was Angela's dreaded foreboding to become reality.
However great the awe which fell upon the Chevalier at old Francesco
Vertua's death-scene, when the old man, despising the consolation of
the Church, though in the last agonies of death, had not been able to
turn his tho