"The misfortunes of the mother seemed to follow and dog the daughter, whose great personal beauty served only as her worst enemy. She was brought up respectably enough, and but for what Lord Byron calls the 'fatal dower,' would doubtless have lived and died in the monotony of a commonplace existence. Little as you may think it, however, Adèle Lamien was possessed of such unusual beauty of face and form, it was impossible for her to pass unnoticed in the rank and file of humanity. "In ignorance of her mother's fate, the poor girl, with a blindness born of innocence, was soon treading step by step that dolorous path which had ended for her young mother in despair and death. There's an irony in such repetitions that might well repay the study of one interested in the factors of the 'great chance' called life. "Well, Adèle was wooed and won by a very lofty personage, who, if not of the parent imperial rose-tree, could claim close connection with it. Like her mother again, the marriage was a secret one, though in accordance with the ritual of the Catholic Church, to which faith the girl belonged. I believe the months that followed were the happiest the girl had ever known in her not too happy life. It made the awakening all the more terrible; for of course there was an awakening. Men have a habit of tiring of their most beautiful human toys, especially if these playthings develop intellect and passion. "Let me draw a veil over this part of Mdlle. Lamien's history. It is enough to say that a terrible crime was committed--a crime so violent and so fatal that all Petersburg were roused to action, and the imperial blood-hounds let loose to track the perpetrator. It was at this time that Adèle fled from Russia, and reached England almost by miracle. From there she hastened to America, haven of all persecuted unfortunates; and in New York she came under my notice. I listened to her story, and, after she had finished its narration, and knowing all against her, and nothing in her favour, I took her as governess for my little daughter. Quixotic! Yes, I know it was, and a dangerous experiment; but I couldn't help it--there were reasons--her eyes haunted me. And truth compels me to state that so far she has proved herself fully worthy of my trust. Marianne is devoted to her--she is little short of angelic in the child's eyes; and I openly confess to a tender regard for her. She is unexplainable, enigmatic, fascinating. But, hush, here comes the child; and _her_ ears are something abnormal." Esther finished with a dramatic little gesture that set them all laughing, and in the general merriment Philip's gravity passed unchallenged. The story, as told by Mrs. Newbold, with all her little artistic touches of gesture and inflection, haunted him strangely. He found himself constantly reverting to it, and always with an incongruous and almost jarring thought of Patty, running side by side with his unwilling sympathy for Mdlle. Lamien.