lthough he
could not trace the beam to its source, too dazzling. But she had no
faith in him, she did not understand his value, and from the time of his
certainty that they were not the unit of two hearts to which happiness
accrues and where it abides, he merely resigned himself to the
irremediable grief. Having vainly tried to make of her a worthy wife,
and seeing that motherhood had not saved her--earthly redemption though
it is of her sex--he could only watch her and prevent her resuming that
orbit which would no doubt end badly, as her race offered too many
examples.

On one occasion, fatigued with watching that she did not take a faulty
step, he had written to Russia to see if she would find a harbor there,
but the answer came from her father and sealed up that outlet. Her
elopement had caused her mother fatal sorrow, and her father said
plainly that he regarded her as dead. Though she came to his gates,
begging her bread, he would bid his janitor drive her away. Her mother
had been a good wife, but her grandmother had extorted a mint of money
and, after all, nearly ruined him in the good graces of his Emperor out
of spite, from her blackmail failing at last to remunerate her.

Since in Cesarine, Felix found no intelligent and sympathetic companion,
he took into intimacy a kind of apprentice whom he had literally picked
up on the road. A slender lad of southern origin, whom a band of
vagrants, making for the sea to embark to South America, had cast off to
die in the ditch. Clemenceau gave him shelter, nursed him--for his wife
would have nothing to do with a beggar--and to cover the hospitality and
soothe the Italian's pride, paid him liberally to be his model. He was
named Antonino and might have been a descendant of the Emperor from his
lofty features, burning eye and fine sentiments. Healed, able to resume
his journey and offered a loan to make it smooth, he effusively uttered
a declaration of gratitude and devotion, and vowed to remain the slave
of the man who had saved him from a miserable death.

A good work rarely goes unrewarded. Antonino, who had never touched a
piece of colored chalk to a black stone, soon revealed strong gift as a
draftsman and served his new master with brightness and taste.

Left lonely by his wife, each day more and more estranged, Felix loved
to labor with the youth in the tasks to both congenial. That Cesarine
should grow jealous would be natural, but it was pique that she felt
t