transformation. The Castanier of old no longer existed--the boy, the
young Lothario, the soldier who had proved his courage, who had been
tricked into a marriage and disillusioned, the cashier, the passionate
lover who had committed a crime for Aquilina's sake. His inmost nature
had suddenly asserted itself. His brain had expanded, his senses had
developed. His thoughts comprehended the whole world; he saw all the
things of earth as if he had been raised to some high pinnacle above
the world.

Until that evening at the play he had loved Aquilina to distraction.
Rather than give her up he would have shut his eyes to her
infidelities; and now all that blind passion had passed away as a
cloud vanishes in the sunlight.

Jenny was delighted to succeed to her mistress' position and fortune,
and did the cashier's will in all things; but Castanier, who could
read the inmost thoughts of the soul, discovered the real motive
underlying this purely physical devotion. He amused himself with her,
however, like a mischievous child who greedily sucks the juice of the
cherry and flings away the stone. The next morning at breakfast time,
when she was fully convinced that she was a lady and the mistress of
the house, Castanier uttered one by one the thoughts that filled her
mind as she drank her coffee.

"Do you know what you are thinking, child?" he said, smiling. "I will
tell you: 'So all that lovely rosewood furniture that I coveted so
much, and the pretty dresses that I used to try on, are mine now! All
on easy terms that Madame refused, I do no know why. My word! if I
might drive about in a carriage, have jewels and pretty things, a box
at the theatre, and put something by! with me he should lead a life of