rich man, I would snap my fingers at him; but how can I, with a paltry
eight hundred a year, provide for that woman? Pshaw! If I could but
settle it with a pair of hair-triggers and twenty paces of turf, I'd
leave little work for the lawyers!"

"Well, then, what is to be done?"

"Only this," replied he, striding impatiently to and fro, like a caged
lion; "I must just bear with my helplessness, and leave the remedy to
those who can oppose skill to skill, and lawyer to lawyer."

"At all events, you marry the lady."

"Ay--I marry the lady; but I start to-morrow night for Berlin, _en
route_ for anywhere that chance may lead me."

"Without her?"

"Without her. Do you suppose that I would stay in Paris--her
husband--and live apart from her? Meet her, like an ordinary
acquaintance? See others admiring her? Be content to lounge in and out
of her _soirées_, or ride beside her carriage now and then, as you or
fifty others might do? Perhaps, have even to endure the presence of De
Caylus himself? _Merci_! Any number of miles, whether of land or sea,
were better than a martyrdom like that!"

"De Caylus!" I repeated. "Where have I heard that name?"

"You may have heard of it in a hundred places," replied my friend. "As I
said before, the man is a gallant soldier, and does gallant things. But