Aroused suddenly to a realization of the wrongs and wretchedness to which his inordinate pride and ambition had chiefly contributed, the Nemesis of self-judgment had opened its grim assize in General Laurance’s soul, and he cowered before the phantoms that stood forth to testify.

No father of ordinary prudence and affection could have failed to oppose the reckless folly of his son’s ill-starred marriage, or hesitated to save him, if compatible with God’s law and human statutes, from the misery and humiliation it threatened to entail.  But when he made a football of marriage vows, and became auxiliary to a second nuptial ceremony, striving by legal quibbles to cancel what only Death annuls, the hounds of Retribution leaped from their leash.

The deepest, strongest love of his life had bloomed in the sunset light, wearing the mellow glory of the aftermath; and his heart clung to the beautiful dream of his old age, with a fierce tenacity that destroyed it, when rudely torn away by the awful revelations of “Infelice.”  To lose at once not only his lovely idol, but that darling fetich—­Laurance prestige; to behold the total eclipse of his proud reputation and family name; to witness the ploughshare of social degradation and financial ruin driven by avenging hands over all he held dearest, was a doom which the vanquished old man could not survive.

Perhaps the vital forces had already begun to yield to the disease that so suddenly prostrated him at Naples, dashing the cup of joy from his thirsty lips; and perchance the grim Kata-clothes had handed the worn tangled threads of existence to their faithful minister Paralysis, even before the severe shock that numbed him while sitting in the theatre loge.

When his eyes closed upon the spectacle of his son, folding in his arms his firstborn, they shut out for ever the things of time and sense, and consciousness that forsook him then never reoccupied its throne.  He was carried from the brilliant salon of the popular actress to the home of his son; medical skill exhausted its ingenuity, and though forty-eight hours elapsed before the weary heart ceased its slow feeble pulsations, General Laurance’s soul passed to its final assize, without even a shadowy farewell recognition of the son, for whom he had hoped, suffered, dared so much.

“Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.”

During the week that succeeded his temporary entombment in the sacred repose of Pere La Chaise, Mrs. Orme completed her brief engagement at the theatre where she had so dearly earned her freshest laurels; and though her tragic career closed in undimmed splendour, when she voluntarily abdicated the throne she had justly won, bidding adieu for ever to the scene of former triumphs, she heard above the plaudits of the multitude the stern whisper, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.”