THE RACE OF ORVEN

Never without grief and pain could I remember the fate of Prince
Zaleski--victim of a too importunate, too unfortunate Love, which the
fulgor of the throne itself could not abash; exile perforce from his
native land, and voluntary exile from the rest of men! Having renounced
the world, over which, lurid and inscrutable as a falling star, he had
passed, the world quickly ceased to wonder at him; and even I, to whom,
more than to another, the workings of that just and passionate mind had
been revealed, half forgot him in the rush of things.

But during the time that what was called the 'Pharanx labyrinth' was
exercising many of the heaviest brains in the land, my thought turned
repeatedly to him; and even when the affair had passed from the general
attention, a bright day in Spring, combined perhaps with a latent
mistrust of the _dénoûment_ of that dark plot, drew me to his place of
hermitage.

I reached the gloomy abode of my friend as the sun set. It was a vast
palace of the older world standing lonely in the midst of woodland, and
approached by a sombre avenue of poplars and cypresses, through which
the sunlight hardly pierced. Up this I passed, and seeking out the
deserted stables (which I found all too dilapidated to afford shelter)
finally put up my _calèche_ in the ruined sacristy of an old Dominican
chapel, and turned my mare loose to browse for the night on a paddock
behind the domain.

As I pushed back the open front door and entered the mansion, I could
not but wonder at the saturnine fancy that had led this wayward man to
select a brooding-place so desolate for the passage of his days. I