and incapable the next morning; often the victim of their own virtues, and often lucky through their worst passions; admirable men in some respects, when their good qualities are kept to a steady energy by some outward bond.  For two years after his retreat from active life Diard was held captive in his home by the softest chains.  He lived, almost in spite of himself, under the influence of his wife, who made herself gay and amusing to cheer him, who used the resources of feminine genius to attract and seduce him to a love of virtue, but whose ability and cleverness did not go so far as to simulate love.

At this time all Paris was talking of the affair of a captain in the army who in a paroxysm of libertine jealousy had killed a woman.  Diard, on coming home to dinner, told his wife that the officer was dead.  He had killed himself to avoid the dishonor of a trial and the shame of death upon the scaffold.  Juana did not see at first the logic of such conduct, and her husband was obliged to explain to her the fine jurisprudence of French law, which does not prosecute the dead.

“But, papa, didn’t you tell us the other day that the king could pardon?” asked Francisque.

“The king can give nothing but life,” said Juan, half scornfully.

Diard and Juana, the spectators of this little scene, were differently affected by it.  The glance, moist with joy, which his wife cast upon her eldest child was a fatal revelation to the husband of the secrets of a heart hitherto impenetrable.  That eldest child was all Juana; Juana comprehended him; she was sure of his heart, his future; she adored him, but her ardent love was a secret between herself, her child, and God.  Juan instinctively enjoyed the seeming indifference of his mother in presence of his father and brother, for she pressed him to her heart when alone.  Francisque was Diard, and Juana’s incessant care and watchfulness betrayed her desire to correct in the son the vices of the father and to encourage his better qualities.  Juana, unaware that her glance had said too much and that her husband had rightly interpreted it, took Francisque in her lap and gave him, in a gentle voice still trembling with the pleasure that Juan’s answer had brought her, a lesson upon honor, simplified to his childish intelligence.

“That boy’s character requires care,” said Diard.

“Yes,” she replied simply.

“How about Juan?”

Madame Diard, struck by the tone in which the words were uttered, looked at her husband.

“Juan was born perfect,” he added.

Then he sat down gloomily, and reflected.  Presently, as his wife continued silent, he added:—­

“You love one of your children better than the other.”

“You know that,” she said.

“No,” said Diard, “I did not know until now which of them you preferred.”

“But neither of them have ever given me a moment’s uneasiness,” she answered quickly.