_canaille_. I am the more willing to gratify your curiosity, since it will
perhaps serve to guide your kind search in my favor. You must know, then,
that my kinsman was not born the heir to the rank he obtained. He was but
a distant relation to the head of the house which he afterwards
represented. Brought up in an Italian university, he was distinguished for
his learning and his eccentricities. There, too, I suppose, brooding over
old wives' tales about freedom, and so forth, he contracted his
_carbonaro_, chimerical notions for the independence of Italy. Suddenly,
by three deaths, he was elevated, while yet young, to a station and honors
which might have satisfied any man in his senses. _Que diable!_ what could
the independence of Italy do for _him_! He and I were cousins; we had
played together as boys; but our lives had been separated till his
succession to rank brought us necessarily together. We became exceedingly
intimate. And you may judge how I loved him," said the Count, averting his
eyes slightly from Randal's quiet, watchful gaze, "when I add, that I
forgave him for enjoying a heritage that, but for him, had been mine."

"Ah, you were next heir?"

"And it is a hard trial to be very near a great fortune, and yet just miss
it."

"True," cried Randal, almost impetuously. The Count now raised his eyes,
and again the two men looked into each other's souls.

"Harder still, perhaps," resumed the Count, after a short pause--"harder
still might it have been to some men to forgive the rival as well as the
heir."

"Rival! How?"

"A lady, who had been destined by her parents to myself, though we had
never, I own, been formally betrothed, became the wife of my kinsman."

"Did he know of your pretensions?"

"I do him the justice to say he did not. He saw and fell in love with the
young lady I speak of. Her parents were dazzled. Her father sent for me.
He apologized--he explained; he set before me, mildly enough, certain
youthful imprudences or errors of my own, as an excuse for his change of
mind; and he asked me not only to resign all hope of his daughter, but to
conceal from her new suitor that I had ever ventured to hope."

"And you consented?"

"I consented."

"That was generous. You must indeed have been much attached to your
kinsman. As a lover I cannot comprehend it; perhaps, my dear Count, you
may enable me to understand it better--as a man of the world."

"Well," said the Count, with his most _roue_