at home--in that place, led
astray by morbid self-esteem, you played for the first time. What, in a
man of your rank, should have been a mere amusement, a fugitive
pleasure, became a serious business. You played to win, or rather to
repair your losses. In the saloons of Paris you were constantly at the
ecarte tables, that cursed game, the chances of which have ruined so
many persons. Thanks to it, you won immense sums from young Lord Elmore,
at the last ball of M. L----, which you lost again in the more doubtful
house of Mme. Fanny de Bruneval, where you had an appointment."

"Ah, father! then he went to that woman's house to play?" said Aminta,
almost involuntarily.

"What else should he go for to the house of a dowager of fifty, who
receives all sorts of people, and where every thing is suspicious, from
her guests to the very cards they use? This very night, in consequence
of information received from me, that elegant abode will be examined by
the police most scrupulously. That," said the Prince, "is one of the
reasons why I have prevented my son from going thither. Now, Monsieur,"
said the Prince, "make an explanation of the state of your funds. You
had six hundred thousand francs from your mother, you have expended two
hundred thousand in furniture, horses, carriages, articles of luxury,
and presents to your wife. With the expenditure of this money I have no
fault to find, for you cannot estimate too highly the angel Heaven has
sent you. Then you had four hundred thousand francs. You have realized
this money, and during the last two months have lost the sum of three
hundred and ninety thousand francs. This evening, Monsieur, you were
about to tempt fortune with the ten thousand francs now in your
possession. Is not this the exact state of your affairs?"

"Ah, Monsieur, it is cruel to say all this before the Marquise."

"It is a hundred times less cruel than the suspicion to which you
abandon her. Did you not see just now that instead of reproaching the
gamester who had ruined her, she experienced only a tender emotion for
the husband she loved? Henri," continued the Prince, taking his son's
hand in his own, "when I told you how once in my life I had erred, when
I confessed to you a fault which yet makes my cheek blush, I sought to
make you pause on the abyss into which you were near plunging. In
telling you this secret I deprived myself of the right of severity to
you. When, in a letter I wrote to you at Naples,