“Perhaps she really loved me at that time.  At least she did not hesitate, and, overcome by the only real great passion of her life, she told me all that was in her innermost heart.  At that time she did not think yet of protecting herself against me, and of making me her slave.  She told me the secret of her marriage, which had at one time created such a sensation in the whole country.

“When her father, the Marquis de Brissac, had given up his place, he had soon begun to feel his inactivity weigh upon him, and at the same time he had become impatient at the narrowness of his means.  He had ventured upon hazardous speculations.  He had lost every thing he had; and even his honor was at stake.  In his despair he was thinking of suicide, when chance brought to his house a former comrade, Count Claudieuse.  In a moment of confidence, the marquis confessed every thing; and the other had promised to rescue him, and save him from disgrace.  That was noble and grand.  It must have cost an immense sum.  And the friends of our youth who are capable of rendering us such services are rare in our day.  Unfortunately, Count Claudieuse could not all the time be the hero he had been at first.  He saw Genevieve de Tassar.  He was struck with her beauty; and overcome by a sudden passion—­forgetting that she was twenty, while he was nearly fifty—­he made his friend aware that he was still willing to render him all the services in his power, but that he desired to obtain Genevieve’s hand in return.

“That very evening the ruined nobleman entered his daughter’s room, and, with tears in his eyes, explained to her his terrible situation.  She did not hesitate a moment.

“‘Above all,’ she said to her father, ’let us save our honor, which even your death would not restore.  Count Claudieuse is cruel to forget that he is thirty years older than I am.  From this moment I hate and despise him.  Tell him I am willing to be his wife.’

“And when her father, overcome with grief, told her that the count would never accept her hand in this form, she replied,—­

“’Oh, do not trouble yourself about that!  I shall do the thing handsomely, and your friend shall have no right to complain.  But I know what I am worth; and you must remember hereafter, that, whatever service he may render you, you owe him nothing.’

“Less than a fortnight after this scene, Genevieve had allowed the count to perceive that he was not indifferent to her and a month later she became his wife.

“The count, on his side, had acted with the utmost delicacy and tact; so that no one suspected the cruel position of the Marquis de Tassar.  He had placed two hundred thousand francs in his hands to settle his most pressing debts.  In his marriage-contract he had acknowledged having received with his wife a dower of the same amount; and finally, he had bound himself to pay to his father-in-law and his wife an annual income of ten thousand francs.  This had absorbed more than half of all he possessed.”