drove
back love, desire, all the most invincible forces of our manhood,
with the cold hand of gratitude,--gratitude which must be eternal.

"Your terrible contempt has been my punishment. You have shown me
there is no return from loathing or disdain. I love you madly. I
should have gone had Adam died; all the more must I go because he
lives. A man does not tear his friend from the arms of death to
betray him. Besides, my going is my punishment for the thought
that came to me that I would let him die, when the doctors said
that his life depended on his nursing.

"Adieu, madame; in leaving Paris I lose all, but you lose nothing
now in my being no longer near you.

"Your devoted

"Thaddeus Paz."

"If my poor Adam says he has lost a friend, what have I lost?" thought
Clementine, sinking into a chair with her eyes fixed on the carpet.

The following letter Constantin had orders to give privately to the
count:--

"My dear Adam,--Malaga has told me all. In the name of all your
future happiness, never let a word escape you to Clementine about
your visits to that girl; let her think that Malaga has cost me a
hundred thousand francs. I know Clementine's character; she will
never forgive you either your losses at cards or your visits to
Malaga.

"I am not going to Khiva, but to the Caucasus. I have the spleen;
and at the pace at which I mean to go I shall be either Prince
Paz in three years, or dead. Good-by; though I have taken
sixty-thousand francs from Nucingen, our accounts are even.

"Thaddeus."

"Idiot that I was," thought Adam; "I came near to cutting my throat just
now, talking about Malaga."

It is now three years since Paz went away. The newspapers have as yet
said nothing about any Prince Paz. The Comtesse Laginska is immensely
interested in the expeditions of the Emperor Nicholas; she is Russian to
the core, and reads with a sort of avidity all the news that comes from
that distant land. Once or twice every winter she says to the Russian
ambassador, with an air of indifference, "Do you know what has become of
our poor Comte Paz?"

Alas! most Parisian women, those beings who think themselves so clever
and clear-sighted, pass and repass beside a Paz and never recognize
him. Yes, many a Paz is unknown and misconceived, but--horrible to think
of!--some are misconceived even though they are loved. The simplest
women in society exact a certain amount of conv