knows how! Do you know at what you have struck?--At his whole life. He has been married these two years; he is worshiped by a charming wife, whom he loves, but neglects; she lives in tears and embittered silence. Soulanges has had hours of remorse more terrible than his pleasure has been sweet. And you, you artful little thing, have deserted him.--Well, come and see your work.” The old lady took Madame de Vaudremont’s hand, and they rose. “There,” said Madame de Lansac, and her eyes showed her the stranger, sitting pale and tremulous under the glare of the candles, “that is my grandniece, the Comtesse de Soulanges; to-day she yielded at last to my persuasion, and consented to leave the sorrowful room, where the sight of her child gives her but little consolation. You see her? You think her charming? Then imagine, dear Beauty, what she must have been when happiness and love shed their glory on that face now blighted.” The Countess looked away in silence, and seemed lost in sad reflections. The Duchess led her to the door into the card-room; then, after looking round the room as if in search of some one--“And there is Soulanges!” she said in deep tones. The Countess shuddered as she saw, in the least brilliantly lighted corner, the pale, set face of Soulanges stretched in an easy-chair. The indifference of his attitude and the rigidity of his brow betrayed his suffering. The players passed him to and fro, without paying any more attention to him than if he had been dead. The picture of the wife in tears, and the dejected, morose husband, separated in the midst of this festivity like the two halves of a tree blasted by lightning, had perhaps a prophetic significance for the Countess. She dreaded lest she here saw an image of the revenges the future might have in store for her. Her heart was not yet so dried up that the feeling and generosity were entirely excluded, and she pressed the Duchess’ hand, while thanking her by one of those smiles which have a certain childlike grace. “My dear child,” the old lady said in her ear, “remember henceforth that we are just as capable of repelling a man’s attentions as of attracting them.” “She is yours if you are not a simpleton.” These words were whispered into Colonel Montcornet’s ear by Madame de Lansac, while the handsome Countess was still absorbed in compassion at the sight of Soulanges, for she still loved him truly enough to wish to restore him to happiness, and was promising herself in her own mind that she would exert the irresistible power her charms still had over him to make him return to his wife. “Oh! I will talk to him!” said she to Madame de Lansac.