"It is very strange, but it seems to me I have heard that Mlle. de Beaumesnil strongly resembles her mother, who used to be one of the prettiest women in Paris," remarked another gentleman. "This girl is atrociously ugly, I tell you," said M. de Ravil. "In fact, I'm not sure that she isn't deformed as well." "Yes," remarked M. de Mornand, awakening from his reverie, "several other persons have said the very same thing about the girl that Ravil does." "But why didn't her mother accompany her to Italy?" "Because the poor woman had already been attacked by the strange malady to which she is about to succumb, it seems. People say that it was a terrible disappointment to her because she could not follow her daughter to Naples, and that this disappointment has contributed not a little to her present hopeless state." "It would seem, then, that Doctor Dupont's musical cure has proved a failure." "What musical cure?" "Knowing Madame de Beaumesnil's passionate love of music, the doctor, to mitigate his patient's sufferings and arouse her from her langour, ordered that soft and soothing music should be played or sung to her." "Not a bad idea, though revived from the times of Saul and David," commented Ravil. "Well, what was the result?" "Madame de Beaumesnil seemed benefited at first, they say, but her malady soon regained the ascendency." "I have heard that poor Beaumesnil's sudden death was a terrible shock to her." "Bah!" exclaimed M. de Mornand, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, "she never cared a straw for Beaumesnil. She only married him for his millions of millions. Besides, as a young girl she had any number of lovers. In short," continued M. de Mornand, puffing out his cheeks with an air of supercilious dignity, "Madame de Beaumesnil is really a woman of no reputation whatever, and, in spite of the enormous fortune she will leave, no honourable man would ever be willing to marry the daughter of such a mother." "Scoundrel!" exclaimed a voice which seemed to respond indignantly to M. de Mornand's last words from behind the clump of lilacs. There was a moment of amazed silence; then M. de Mornand, purple with anger, made a hasty circuit of the clump of shrubbery. He found no one there, however. The path at this place making an abrupt turn, the person who uttered the opprobrious epithet could make his escape with comparative ease. "There are no more infamous scoundrels than the persons who insult others without daring to show themselves," cried M. de Mornand, in a loud voice. This strange incident had scarcely taken place before the sound of the orchestra drew the promenaders back to the salon. M. de Mornand being left alone with Ravil, the latter said to him: "Somebody who dared not show himself called you a scoundrel. We had better say no more about it. But did you understand me?" "Perfectly. The same idea suddenly, I might almost say simultaneously, occurred to me, and for an instant I was dazzled--even dazed by it."