as one more proof of Mrs. Newell’s extraordinary capacity; but now it appealed to him from the girl’s own stand-point.  For he saw, with a touch of compunction, that in the mephitic air of her surroundings a love-story of surprising freshness had miraculously flowered.  He had only to intercept the glances which the young couple exchanged to find himself transported to the candid region of romance.  It was evident that Hermione adored and was adored; that the lovers believed in each other and in every one about them, and that even the legacy of the defunct aunt had not been too great a strain on their faith in human nature.

His first glance at the Comte Louis du Trayas showed Garnett that, by some marvel of fitness, Hermione had happened upon a kindred nature.  If the young man’s long mild features and short-sighted glance revealed no special force of character, they showed a benevolence and simplicity as incorruptible as her own, and declared that their possessor, whatever his failings, would never imperil the illusions she had so miraculously preserved.  The fact that the girl took her good fortune naturally, and did not regard herself as suddenly snatched from the jaws of death, added poignancy to the situation; for if she missed this way of escape, and was thrown back on her former life, the day of discovery could not be long deferred.  It made Garnett shiver to think of her growing old between her mother and Schenkelderff, or such successors of the Baron’s as might probably attend on Mrs. Newell’s waning fortunes; for it was clear to him that the Baron marked the first stage in his friend’s decline.  When Garnett took leave that evening he had promised Mrs. Newell that he would try to find her husband.

V

IF Mr. Newell read in the papers the announcement of his daughter’s marriage it did not cause him to lift the veil of seclusion in which his wife represented him as shrouded.

A round of the American banks in Paris failed to give Garnett his address, and it was only in chance talk with one of the young secretaries of the Embassy that he was put on Mr. Newell’s track.  The secretary’s father, it appeared, had known the Newells some twenty years earlier.  He had had business relations with Mr. Newell, who was then a man of property, with factories or something of the kind, the narrator thought, somewhere in Western New York.  There had been at this period, for Mrs. Newell, a phase of large hospitality and showy carriages in Washington and at Narragansett.  Then her husband had had reverses, had lost heavily in Wall Street, and had finally drifted abroad and been lost to sight.  The young man did not know at what point in his financial decline Mr. Newell had parted company with his wife and daughter; “though you may bet your hat,” he philosophically concluded, “that the old girl hung on as long as there were any pickings.”  He did not himself know Mr. Newell’s address, but opined that it might be extracted from a certain official at the Consulate, if Garnett could give a sufficiently good reason for the request; and here in fact Mrs. Newell’s emissary learned that her husband was to be found in an obscure street of the Luxembourg quarter.