so fiery--she interested me strongly. I should say that she was
wonderfully handsome; and though imperfectly educated, and brought up in
circumstances so lowly, there was nothing common about her--a certain _je
ne sais quoi_ of stateliness and race. At all events she did with me
what she wished. I agreed to aid her desire of a refuge and hiding-
place. Of course I could not lodge her in my own apartment, but I
induced a female relation of her mother's, an old lady living at
Versailles, to receive her, stating her birth, but of course concealing
her illegal marriage.

"From time to time I went to see her. But one day I found this restless
bright-plumaged bird flown. Among the ladies who visited at her
relative's house was a certain Madame Marigny, a very pretty young widow.
Madame Marigny and Louise formed a sudden and intimate friendship. The
widow was moving from Versailles into an apartment at Paris, and invited
Louise to share it. She had consented. I was not pleased at this; for
the widow was too young, and too much of a coquette, to be a safe
companion to Louise. But though professing much gratitude and great
regard for me, I had no power of controlling the poor girl's actions.
Her nominal husband, meanwhile, had left France, and nothing more was
heard or known of him. I saw that the best thing that could possibly
befall Louise was marriage with some one rich enough to gratify her taste
for luxury and pomp; and that if such a marriage offered itself, she
might be induced to free it from all possible embarrassment by procuring
the annulment of the former, from which she had hitherto shrunk in such
revolt. This opportunity presented itself. A man already rich, and in a
career that promised to make him infinitely richer, an associate of mine
in those days when I was rapidly squandering the remnant of my
inheritance--this man saw her at the opera in company with Madame
Marigny, fell violently in love with her, and ascertaining her