“Oh, you don’t know Malaga,” said the captain, bitterly, with a sarcastic look in his eyes which made Clementine thoughtful and uneasy. “Good-by to the young trees of this beautiful Bois, which you Parisians love, and the exiles who find a home here love too,” he said, presently. “My eyes will never again see the evergreens of the avenue de Mademoiselle, nor the acacias nor the cedars of the rond-points. On the borders of Asia, fighting for the Emperor, promoted to the command, perhaps, by force of courage and by risking my life, it may happen that I shall regret these Champs-Elysees where I have driven beside you, and where you pass. Yes, I shall grieve for Malaga’s hardness--the Malaga of whom I am now speaking.” This was said in a manner that made Clementine tremble. “Then you do love Malaga very much?” she asked. “I have sacrificed for her the honor that no man should ever sacrifice.” “What honor?” “That which we desire to keep at any cost in the eyes of our idol.” After that reply Thaddeus said no more; he was silent until, as they passed a wooden building on the Champs Elysees, he said, pointing to it, “That is the Circus.” He went to the Russian Embassy before dinner, and thence to the Foreign office, and the next morning he had started for Havre before the count and countess were up. “I have lost a friend,” said Adam, with tears in his eyes, when he heard that Paz had gone,--“a friend in the true meaning of the word. I don’t know what has made him abandon me as if a pestilence were in my house. We are not friends to quarrel about a woman,” he said, looking intently at Clementine. “You heard what he said yesterday about Malaga. Well, he has never so much as touched the little finger of that girl.” “How do you know that?” said Clementine. “I had the natural curiosity to go and see Mademoiselle Turquet, and the poor girl can’t explain even to herself the absolute reserve which Thad--” “Enough!” said the countess, retreating into her bedroom. “Can it be that I am the victim of some noble mystification?” she asked herself. The thought had hardly crossed her mind when Constantin brought her the following letter written by Thaddeus during the night:-- “Countess,--To seek death in the Caucasus and carry with me your contempt is more than I can bear. A man should die untainted. When I saw you for the first time I loved you as we love a woman whom we shall love forever, even though she be unfaithful to us. I loved you thus,--I, the friend of the man you had chosen and were about to marry; I, poor; I, the steward,--a voluntary service, but still the steward of your household.