“No, no,” replied he, as he hurriedly made his way to the writing-room, “Chambertin is as sound as a bell.”

“What the deuce has happened to De Breulh?” asked one of the members.

“Goodness gracious!” remarked the man to whom the question was addressed, “he seems in a hurry to write a letter.”

The gentleman was right.  M. de Breulh was writing a withdrawal from his demand for Sabine’s hand to M. de Mussidan, and he found the task by no means an easy one, for on reading it over he found that there was a valid strain of bitterness throughout it, which would surely attract attention and perhaps cause embarrassing questions to be put to him.

“No,” murmured he, “this letter is quite unworthy of me.”  And tearing it up, he began another, in which he strung together several conventional excuses, alleging the difficulty of breaking off his former habits and of an awkward entanglement which he had been unable to break with, as he had anticipated.  When this little masterpiece of diplomacy was completed, he rang the bell, and, handing it to one of the club servants, told him to take it to the Count de Mussidan’s house.  When this unpleasant duty was over, M. de Breulh had hoped to experience some feeling of relief, but in this he was mistaken.  He tried cards, but rose from the table in a quarter of an hour; he ordered dinner, but appetite was wanting; he went to the opera, but then he did nothing but yawn, and the music grated on his nerves.  At length he returned home.  The day had seemed interminable, and he could not sleep, for Sabine’s face was ever before him.  Who could this man be whom she so fondly loved and preferred before all others?  He respected her too much not to feel assured that her choice was a worthy one, but his experience had taught him that when so many men of the world fell into strange entanglements, a poor girl without knowledge of the dangers around her might easily be entrapped.  “If he is worthy of her,” thought he, “I will do my best to aid her; but if not, I will open her eyes.”

At four o’clock in the morning he was still seated musing before the expiring embers of his fire; he had made up his mind to see Andre—­there was no difficulty in this, for a man of taste and wealth can find a ready excuse for visiting the studio of a struggling artist.  He had no fixed plan as to what he would say or do, he left all to chance, and with this decision he went to bed, and by two in the afternoon he drove straight to the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne.

Andre’s discreet portress was as usual leaning on her broom in the gallery as M. de Breulh’s magnificent equipage drew up.

“Gracious me!” exclaimed the worthy woman, dazzled by the gorgeousness of the whole turnout; “he can’t be coming here, he must have mistaken the house.”

But her amazement reached its height when M. de Breulh, on alighting, asked for Andre.

“Fourth story, first door to the right,” answered the woman; “but I will show you the way.”