our friend, the cousin, comes forward again.  By this time he is enough man of the world to appreciate the value of land—­more especially as he has sold, mortgaged, played the mischief with nearly every acre of his own.  He pleads the old engagement, and, as he is pleased to call it, the old love.  Madame de Courcelles is a young widow, very solitary, with no one to love, no object to live for, and no experience of the world.  Her pity is easily awaked; and the result is that she not only accepts the cousin, but lends him large sums of money; suffers the title-deeds of her estates to go into the hands of his lawyer; and is formally betrothed to him before the eyes of all Paris!”

“Who is this man?  Where is he?” I asked, eagerly.

“He is an officer of Chasseurs, now serving with his regiment in Algiers—­a daring, dashing, reckless fellow; heartless and dissipated enough; but a splendid soldier.  However, having committed her property to his hands, and suffered her name to be associated publicly with his, Madame de Courcelles, during his absence in Algiers, has done me the honor to prefer me.  I have the first real love of her life, and the short and long of it is, that we are to be privately married to-morrow.”

“And why privately?”

“Ah, there’s the pity of it!  There’s the disappointment and the bitterness!”

“Can’t Madame de Courcelles write and tell this man that she loves somebody else better?”

“Confound it! no.  The fellow has her too much in his power, and, if he chose to be dishonest, could half ruin her.  At all events she is afraid of him; and I ...  I am as helpless as a child in the matter.  If I were a rich man, I would snap my fingers at him; but how can I, with a paltry eight hundred a year, provide for that woman?  Pshaw!  If I could but settle it with a pair of hair-triggers and twenty paces of turf, I’d leave little work for the lawyers!”

“Well, then, what is to be done?”

“Only this,” replied he, striding impatiently to and fro, like a caged lion; “I must just bear with my helplessness, and leave the remedy to those who can oppose skill to skill, and lawyer to lawyer.”

“At all events, you marry the lady.”

“Ay—­I marry the lady; but I start to-morrow night for Berlin, en route for anywhere that chance may lead me.”

“Without her?”

“Without her.  Do you suppose that I would stay in Paris—­her husband—­and live apart from her?  Meet her, like an ordinary acquaintance?  See others admiring her?  Be content to lounge in and out of her soirees, or ride beside her carriage now and then, as you or fifty others might do?  Perhaps, have even to endure the presence of De Caylus himself? Merci!  Any number of miles, whether of land or sea, were better than a martyrdom like that!”

“De Caylus!” I repeated.  “Where have I heard that name?”

“You may have heard of it in a hundred places,” replied my friend.  “As I said before, the man is a gallant soldier, and does gallant things.  But to return to the present question—­may I depend on you to-morrow?  For we must have a witness, and our witness must be both discreet and silent.”