"Will mademoiselle allow me," he said in Spanish, in a voice full of
agitation, "to keep this writing in memory of her? This is the last
lesson I shall have the honor of giving her, and that which I have
just received in these words may serve me for an abiding rule of life.
I left Spain, a fugitive and penniless, but I have to-day received
from my family a sum sufficient for my needs. You will allow me to
send some poor Spaniard in my place."

In other words, he seemed to me to say, "This little game must stop."
He rose with an air of marvelous dignity, and left me quite upset by
such unheard-of delicacy in a man of his class. He went downstairs and
asked to speak with my father.

At dinner my father said to me with a smile:

"Louise, you have been learning Spanish from an ex-minister and a man
condemned to death."

"The Duc de Soria," I said.

"Duke!" replied my father. "No, he is not that any longer; he takes
the title now of Baron de Macumer from a property which still remains
to him in Sardinia. He is something of an original, I think."

"Don't brand with that word, which with you always implies some
mockery and scorn, a man who is your equal, and who, I believe, has a
noble nature."

"Baronne de Macumer?" exclaimed my father, with a laughing glance at
me.