“Do you see,” said Samuel Brohl, “fortune at last smiles upon us.  The charming girl is ours.  I have won her for you, dear Larinski, by the means Othello used to charm the imagination and capture the heart of Desdemona.  Do you not remember, my dear Count, the tales you used to tell us, when we were living together in a garret in Bucharest?  How you fought in the streets of Warsaw against the Cossacks?  How they tracked you through the snow-covered forest by the trail of blood you left behind you?  Oh, I recollected it all, and I flatter myself that I related it with just that proud, sombre, subdued melancholy with which you used to speak of your sufferings.”

“Do you think that she has really fallen in love with me?” asked Count Larinski.  “I am afraid of her father.  In spite of all that I have done for that famous man of science, he does not seem to fancy me as a son-in-law.  Do you imagine it is merely because of my poverty?  Or does he find anything wrong with me?”

This last question profoundly disturbed the soul of Samuel Brohl.  What! were all the skilful intrigues which he had spent four years in weaving, to come to nothing?  For it was now four years since Samuel Brohl had entered into his strange partnership with the Polish nobleman.  Brohl himself was the son of a Jewish tavern-keeper in Gallicia.  A great Russian lady, Princess Gulof, attracted by his handsome presence, and strange green eyes, had engaged him as her secretary and educated him.  He had repaid her by robbing her of her jewels and running off with them to Bucharest.  There he had met Count Larinski, who, for more honourable motives, was also hiding from the Russian secret police.  By representing himself as a persecuted anarchist, Brohl completely won the confidence of large-hearted, chivalrous Polish patriot.

“Ah, it was a lucky chance that brought us together!” said Samuel Brohl.  “If you had not met me, you would have been dead, four years ago, and clean forgotten.  Do you remember your last instructions?  After giving me every bit of money you had—­a little over two thousand florins, wasn’t it?—­you showed me a box containing your family jewels, your letters, your diary, your papers, and you said to me:  ’Destroy everything it contains.  Poland is dead.  Let my name die too!’

“But, my dear Count,” continued Samuel Brohl, “how could I let a man of your heroic worth and romantic character be forgotten by the world?  No, it was Samuel Brohl who died and was buried in an unknown grave.  I have the certificate of his death.  Count Abel Larinski still lives.  It is true that he is so changed by all his sufferings that his oldest friends would never recognise him.  His hair used to be black, it is now brown; his blue eyes have become golden green; moreover he has grown considerably taller.  But what does it matter?  He is still a handsome man, with a noble air and charming manner.”

“Very well,” said Count Larinski.  “I must take the risk of meeting in Paris anyone who used to know me before my transformation.  I will pack up and depart.”