“Thus end all these love-stories,” said Mme. de Thaller in a jesting tone.

“I beg your pardon:  this one is not ended yet.  For many years, my father kept his word, and never left our homestead of Tregars.  But at last he grew tired of his solitude, and returned to Paris.  Did he seek to see his former mistress again?  I think not.  I suppose that chance brought them together; or else, that, being aware of his return, she managed to put herself in his way.  He found her more fascinating than ever, and, according to what she wrote him, rich and respected; for her husband had become a personage.  She would have been perfectly happy, she added, had it been possible for her to forget the man whom she had once loved so much, and to whom she owed her position.

“I have that letter.  The elegant hand, the style, and the correct orthography, express better than any thing else the transformations of the Marquise de Javelle.  Only it is not signed.  The little working-girl has become prudent:  she has much to lose, and fears to compromise herself.

“A week later, in a laconic note, apparently dictated by an irresistible passion, she begs my father to come to see her at her own house.  He does so, and finds there a little girl, whom he believes to be his own child, and whom he at once begins to idolize.

“And that’s all.  Again he falls under the charm.  He ceases to belong to himself:  his former mistress can dispose, at her pleasure, of his fortune and of his fate.

“But see now what bad luck!  The husband takes a notion to become jealous of my father’s visits.  In a letter which is a masterpiece of diplomacy, the lady explains her anxiety.

“‘He has suspicions,’ she writes; ’and to what extremities might he not resort, were he to discover the truth!’ And with infinite art she insinuates that the best way to justify his constant presence is to associate himself with that jealous husband.

“It is with childish haste that my father jumps at the suggestion.  But money is needed.  He sells his lands, and everywhere announces that he has great financial ideas, and that he is going to increase his fortune tenfold.

“There he is now, partner of his former mistress’s husband, engaged in speculations, director of a company.  He thinks that he is doing an excellent business:  he is convinced that he is making lots of money.  Poor honest man!  They prove to him, one morning, that he is ruined, and, what is more, compromised.  And this is made to look so much like the truth, that I interfere myself, and pay the creditors.  We were ruined; but honor was safe.  A few weeks later, my father died broken-hearted.”

Mme. de Thaller half rose from her seat with a gesture which indicated the joy of escaping at last a merciless bore.  A glance from M. de Tregars riveted her to her seat, freezing upon her lips the jest she was about to utter.