My dear Edgar, the smoke of hell has darkened my vision—­I grope in the gloom of a terrible mystery—­Vainly do I strive to solve it, and I turn to you for aid.

Irene has left Paris!  Home, street, city, all deserted!  A damp, dark nothingness surrounds me!

Not an adieu! a line! a message! to console me—­

Women do such things—­

I have done all in my power, and attempted the impossible to find Irene, but without success.  If she only had some ground of complaint against me, how happy I would be.

A terrible thought possesses my fevered brain—­she has fallen into some snare, my marvellously beautiful Irene.

Hide my sorrows, dear Edgar, from the world as I have hidden them.

You would not have recognised the writer of this, had you seen him on the boulevard this morning.  I was a superb dandy, with the poses of a Sybarite and the smiles of a young sultan.  I trod as one in the clouds, and looked so benevolently on my fellow man that three beggars sued for aid as if they recognised Providence in a black coat.  The last observation that reached my ear fell from the lips of an observing philosopher: 

“Heavens! how happy that young man must be!”

Dear Edgar, I long to see you.

Roger de Monbert.

III.

Edgar de Meilhan to the prince de Monbert,
St. Dominique Street, Paris.

Richeport, 20th May, 18—­

No, no, I cannot console you in Paris.  I will escort your grief to Smyrna, Grand Cairo, Chandernagore, New Holland, if you wish, but I would rather be scalped alive than turn my steps towards that fascinating city surrounded by fortifications.

Your elegy found me moderately impressible.  Fortune has apparently always treated you like a spoiled child; were your misfortunes mine I should be delighted, and in your torment I should find a paradise.  A disappearance afflicts you with agony.  I was forced to beat a retreat once, but not from creditors; my debts are things of the past.  You are fled from—­I am pursued; and whatever you may say to the contrary, it is much more agreeable to be the dog than the hare.

Ah! if the beauty that I adore (this is melo-dramatic) had only conceived such a triumphant idea!  I should not be the one who—­but no one knows when he is well off.  This Mlle. Irene de Chateaudun pleases me, for by this opportune and ingenious eclipse she prevents you from committing a great absurdity.  What put marriage into your head, forsooth!  You who have housed with Bengal tigers and treated the lions of Atlas as lapdogs; who have seen, like Don Caesar de Bazan, women of every color and clime; how could you have centred your affections upon this Parisian doll, and chained the fancies of your cosmopolitan soul to the dull, rolling wheel of domestic and conjugal duty?