“I made no attempt to do so. I wrote a few lines, bitterly reproaching her for the crime she had committed--the double crime. Of that brief letter she took no notice whatever. She continued, I believe, to study with the Signor Ballarini, until fitted to appear on the stage. I do not know what agreement she made with him; the only thing I know is that she came out under her own name, not, thanks be to Providence, under mine!” “And then she attained her desire of becoming a star of the first magnitude,” said Captain Desfrayne, as Gilardoni paused. “She gained the wealth, luxury, power, all but the rank she yearned for. Did you ever see her after that day you came on her by accident in the garden at Turin?” “I have at rare intervals happened to catch a glimpse of her, without desiring to see her, driving past in her carriage, perhaps,” replied Gilardoni. “Not even once have I had the curiosity to enter the theater when she has been singing; the screech of some arch fiend would have been as pleasing in my ears as her finest notes. Not once have I felt an inclination to ask a question as to her way of life. “People have told me that she is one of the best of women, noted for her charity and goodness. They little knew that he to whom they spoke had the first right to be considered in her schemes of benevolence. I took no care of my little money, already diminished by my searches after her unworthy self, and after her brother. “The consequence was, I soon became reduced almost to the verge of want. The good priest who had succeeded the Padre Josef, my brother-in-law, obtained for me a situation as servant to a nobleman--the Count Di Venosta--with whom I was when I first saw you, sir. My life flowed in a dull current until his death; after that, illness, poverty, misery, despair, until these last few days, when I had the good fortune to meet with you, and you had compassion on my friendless state.” Captain Desfrayne considered for some moments. Should he reveal his painful secret to this man who had been so frank with him? He could not resolve to do so: the humiliation would be too great. Before he had felt his situation most painful. These revelations rendered it well-nigh insupportable. That Madam Guiscardini should have the daring to plan the theft of the marriage-register, and the nerve, the cool audacity, to carry her plot into execution, and then refrain from the destruction of the proof she desired to keep from all men’s eyes, was incredible. Yet a strange thought occurred to him. “If no proof of her marriage with you exists,” he said to the Italian, “how do you account for the fact that she evidently fears to accept any of the brilliant offers they say she has received?”