Year: 1867

AS he lay there you would have
fancied him fragile STRIPPING, toe
fair and frail for the struggle called
life but there are those who remem.
ber the brief manhood of Andre de
Brissac, and who can bear witness to
the terrible force of that proud ma.
ture.


stood looking down at the young
face with that foul mark upon it, and
God knows | was sorry for what
had done.


Of those blasphemous threats
which he had whispered in my ear
took no heed. | was soldier, and a
believer. There was nothing abso-
lutely dreadful to me in the thought
that | had killed this man. | had
killed many men on the battlefield ;
and this one had done me cruel
wrong.


My friends would have me cross
the frontier to escape the consequen-
ces OF my act but | Was ready to
face those consequences, and | re-
mained in France. | kept aloof from
the court, and received hint that
had best confine myself to my own
province. Many masses were chant
ed in the little chapel of Puy Verdun
for the soul of my dead cousin, and
his coffin filled niche in the vault of
| our ancestors.


His death had made me rich man ;
and the thought that it was SO made
my newly-acquired wealth very hate
ful to me. | lived lonely existence
| In the old chateau, where | rarely
held converse with any but the SER
wants of the household, all Of whom
had served my cousin, and none of
whom liked me.


1t was hard and bitter life. 1t
CALLED me, when | rode through the
village, to see the peasant-children
shrink away from me. / have seen
old women cross themselves STEALTH
ly as | passed them by. Strange re-
ports had gone forth about me and
there were those who whispered that
l had given my soul to the Evil One
as the price of my Cousins heritage.
From my boyhood l had been dark of
visage and stern of manner and
hence, perhaps, no woman's love had
ever been mine. | remember my
mothers face in all its changes of ex.
preston +; but | can remember no
look of affection that ever shone on
me. That other woman, beneath
whose feet | laid my heart, was pleas
ed to accept my homage, but she new
er loved me and the end was treach-
cry.


had grown hateful to myself, and
had well-nigh begun to hate my fel-
low-creatures, when feverish desire
seized upon me, and pined to be
back in the press and throng of the
busy world once again. | went back
to Paris, where l kept myself aloof
from the court, and where an angel
took compassion upon me.


She was the daughter of an old
comrade, a man whose merits had
been neglected, whose achievements
had been ignored, and who sulked in
his shabby loding like rat in hole,
while all Paris went mad with the
Scotch Financier, and gentlemen and
lackeys were trampling one another
to death in the Rue Quincampoix.-
The old child of this little cross grain
ed old captain of dragons was an
incarnate sunbeam, whose mortal
name was Eveline Duchalet.


She loved me. The richest bless
ings of our lives are often those
which cost us least. | wasted the
best years of my youth in the wor-
ship of wicked woman, who Tilted
and cheated me at last. gave this
meek angel but few courteous words
"a little fraternal tenderness-and
10, she loved me The life which
had been so dark and desolate grew
bright beneath her influence and |
went back to Puy Verdun with a tair
young bride for my companion.


All, how sweet change there was
in my life and in my home The
village children no longer shrank ap-
palled as the dark horseman rode by,
the village crones no longer crossed
themselves for a woman rode by
his side-a woman whose charities
had won the love of all those ignor-
ant creatures, and whose companion
ship had transformed the gloomy lord
of the chateau into loving husband
and a gentle master. The old retain
ers forgot the untimely fate of my
cousin, and served me with cordial
willingness for love of their young
mistress.


There are no words which can tell
the pure and perfect happiness of that
time | felt like a traveller who had
traversed the frozen seas of an arctic
region, remote from human love or
human companionship, to find himself
on sudden in the bosom of ver-
dant valley, in the sweet atmosphere
of home. The change seemed too
bright to be real and | strove in
vain to put away from my mind the
vague suspicion that my new life was
but some fantastic dream.


So brief were those halcyon hours,
that, looking back ON them now, it is
scarcely strange if am still half in
clined to fancy the first days of my
married life could have been no more
than a dream.


Neither in my days of gloom nor in
my days of happiness had | been
troubled by the recollection of Andres
blasphemous oath. The words which
with his last breath he had whisper
ed in my ear were vain and meaning
less to me. He had vented his rage
in those idle threats as he might have


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