Rosalie, whose soul, brain, and heart were completely upset by reading the story, by this time regarded it as history, written for her rival. By dint of thinking of nothing else, like a child, she ended by believing that the _Eastern Review_ was no doubt forwarded to Albert’s lady-love. “Oh!” said she to herself, her head buried in her hands in the attitude of a person lost in prayer; “oh! how can I get my father to look through the list of people to whom the _Review_ is sent?” After breakfast she took a turn in the garden with her father, coaxing and cajoling him, and brought him to the kiosk. “Do you suppose, my dear little papa, that our _Review_ is ever read abroad?” “It is but just started--” “Well, I will wager that it is.” “It is hardly possible.” “Just go and find out, and note the names of any subscribers out of France.” Two hours later Monsieur de Watteville said to his daughter: “I was right; there is not one foreign subscriber as yet. They hope to get some at Neufchatel, at Berne, and at Geneva. One copy, is in fact, sent to Italy, but it is not paid for--to a Milanese lady at her country house at Belgirate, on Lago Maggiore. “What is her name?” “The Duchesse d’Argaiolo.” “Do you know her, papa?” “I have heard about her. She was by birth a Princess Soderini, a Florentine, a very great lady, and quite as rich as her husband, who has one of the largest fortunes in Lombardy. Their villa on the Lago Maggiore is one of the sights of Italy.” Two days after, Mariette placed the following letter in Mademoiselle de Watteville’s hand:-- Albert Savaron to Leopold Hannequin. “Yes, ‘tis so, my dear friend; I am at Besancon, while you thought I was traveling. I would not tell you anything till success should begin, and now it is dawning. Yes, my dear Leopold, after so many abortive undertakings, over which I have shed the best of my blood, have wasted so many efforts, spent so much courage, I have made up my mind to do as you have done--to start on a beaten path, on the highroad, as the longest but the safest. I can see you jump with surprise in your lawyer’s chair! “But do not suppose that anything is changed in my personal life, of which you alone in the world know the secret, and that under the reservations _she_ insists on. I did not tell you, my friend; but I was horribly weary of Paris. The outcome of the first enterprise, on which I had founded all my hopes, and which came to a bad end in consequence of the utter rascality of my two partners, who combined to cheat and fleece me--me, though everything was done by my energy--made me give up the pursuit of a fortune after the loss of three years of my life. One of these years was spent in the law courts, and perhaps I should have come worse out of the scrape if I had not been made to study law when I was twenty.