him!  When the moon entered the shadow, four masked robbers (Jocrisse was their leader!) climbed into the Baroness Landsknechtsschild’s windows.  The hermit in his observatory beheld this incursion, and, being a knight as well as a recluse, what else could he do but rush to the rescue of his fair neighbor?  His telescope had told him she was fair.  Jocrisse played his part admirably.  At the approach of the deliverer the “robbers” took to their heels, and the brave knight unbound the fettered and charming lady he had delivered from the ruffians.  As Themire had prepared herself for the meeting, you may guess the result:  the hermit was captured!”

Oh, how every drop of blood in Vavel’s veins boiled and seethed!  His face was crimsoned with shame and rage.  He read further: 

“Themire was perfectly certain that the mysterious hermit of the Nameless Castle had fallen in love with her; and I am not so sure but Themire has ended by falling in love with the knight!  Women’s hearts are so impressionable.

“I managed to have my regiment sent to her neighborhood, and took up my quarters in her house.  I sought by every means to lure the hermit from his den; but he is a cunning fox, is this protector of fair ladies!  I could not get a sight of him.  I decided at last to waylay him (when he would be out driving with the veiled lady), to pretend that I was a betrayed husband in search of his errant wife, and ask to see the face of his veiled companion.  This, naturally, he would refuse.  A duel would be the result; and as he has not for years had a weapon in his hand, and as I am a dead shot, you can guess the result—­a hermit against a Spadassin!  With a bullet in his brain, the mysterious maid would become my property.”

Here an icy chill shook Vavel’s frame.  He read on: 

“That was my intention.  But something on which I had not counted prevented me from carrying it out.  When I insisted on seeing the face of the veiled lady, after telling him I believed her to be my wife, Ange Barthelmy (I need not tell you that that entire story was an invention of my own; I published it in a provincial newspaper, whence it spread all over Europe), my brave hermit showed a very bold front, and we were on the point of exchanging blows, when the lady suddenly flung back her veil and revealed the face of—­Themire!  You may believe that I was dumfounded for an instant; then I began to believe that my faith in this woman had been misplaced.  Could it be possible that she had been caught in her own trap—­that she had found this Vavel’s eyes more alluring than the fortune we promised her, and that instead of betraying him to us she would do the very opposite—­betray us to him?  It may be that she has woven a more delicate web than I can detect with which to entangle her romantic victim the more securely.  At all events, when I asked Vavel what relation the lady at his side bore to him, he replied:  ‘She is my betrothed wife.’

     “I confess I am puzzled.  But I have the means of compelling Themire
     to keep her promise.  Her daughter is in my power!”