_La Felina_, far from wishing to lead the Duke astray--far from wishing, as was said, to make her fortune by marrying him, had long rejected the hand of the Neapolitan minister of police when the most powerful reasons would have induced her to accept it. She married the Duke only because of the deep and irrepressible passion which animated her heart for the Count Monte-Leone. She knew the Count loved Aminta; she knew that, when at liberty, he would marry the sister of Taddeo. Anxious to contend with herself by creating new weapons to oppose the passion which devoured her, anxious to build up a new barrier between the Count and herself, and to prepare a defence for her own heart, she accepted the hand of the Duke of Palma as a rampart of duty, and, as it were, forcibly to leave a profession, the triumphs of which disgusted and offended her because she regretted having ever experienced them. These were the reasons or reasonings which led La Felina to act as she did. We shall see, at a later period, that she achieved her purpose. The Duke of Palma having secretly married _La Felina_ in the town of Ferentino, the day Monte-Leone recognized him, took his beautiful wife to a villa he possessed on the _lago di Como_, and after sojourning there a few days, went to Naples and forced the King to accept his resignation as minister of police. The Duke was dissatisfied with Naples, for no one would forgive him for marrying the Prima-Donna. The two then came to Paris after a brief mission, during which the Duke had been obliged to leave her alone at the _lago di Como_. There they purchased the hotel of which we have spoken, and prepared to receive the court, and exhibit all the aristocratic luxury with which the Duke of Palma was so familiar. One circumstance, however, which had been entirely unforeseen, wrecked all their hopes. The best society of Paris, which is so lenient to some eccentricities, yet so rigid in its exaction of obedience to certain prejudices--the society to which, from rank and position, the Duke of Palma belonged, was rebellious. Among the nobles of the restoration there were a few exceptions, and though the persons who ventured to the Duke's were perfectly well received--though they praised in the highest degree the graces and exquisite _haut-ton_ of the Duchess, their example was not followed, and the hotel remained silent and empty. The Duke and Duchess lived alone, buried in a magnificent tomb. The cause of this neglect of the invitations of the ex-minister may be easily divined. The Duke had married La Felina, the singer, about whom there had been, and yet were, so many reports. The beautiful artiste was much wounded by this general neglect, not because she regretted the world and its pleasures, but on account of other impressions which had haunted her since she had lived alone at Como. The affront, however, recoiled on her husband, and her deep, resolute soul bitterly resented it.