whip-lash. "And why should I not believe him?" she asked, sharply. "Because, perhaps, you think me incapable of inspiring a man with affection?"

"Nonsense!" replied the sensible mother-in-law. "You could inspire affection in any honest man with a heart in his bosom, but not in that shallow Pole, that second-rate dandy."

"Perhaps you think him an adventurer, who wooes me for the sake of my money?" Emma exclaimed, indignantly.

"No, I think him a superficial man who, flattered by having made an impression upon a woman of rank, is trying to better his condition. Adventurer! Nonsense! He has not wit enough. An opportunity offers itself, and he embraces it: voilà tout. He is not to blame, but his suit is unworthy of you, and a marriage with him would be a misfortune for you, apart from the fact that you would disgrace your family by it."

When a patient is to be persuaded to take a dose of medicine it ought not to be offered him in an unattractive shape.

The old lady's representations were correct, but they were humiliating. Emma turned away, stubborn and indignant, and a month afterwards married Strachinsky and parted from her mother-in-law forever.

Eight years had passed since then. First came a few months during which Emma revelled in the sensation of loving and being loved, and then--well, the bliss was still there, but a slight shadow had fallen upon it, dimming it, chilling it, a gnawing uneasiness, in the midst of which memory would suddenly suggest the sensible mother-in-law's unsparing predictions.

His marriage put an end to all exertion on Strachinsky's part: it had at a single stroke, as it were, lifted him so far above all for which his ambition had thirsted that he had nothing left to desire, save to enjoy life in distinguished society as far as was possible. With his wife's money he purchased an estate in Bohemia where the soil was the poorest, so great in extent that it made a show in the map of the country, and developed a brilliant talent for hospitality: all the land-owners in the vicinity, all the cavalry-officers from the nearest garrison, were habitués of Luzano, as the estate was called. With his wife's unceasing attentions Strachinsky's self-importance increased, and his regard for her declined. She existed simply to insure his comfort,--for nothing else. The household was turned topsy-turvy when the master's guests appeared, whether invited or unannounced. Strachinsky entertained them with exquisite suppers, at which champagne flowed freely, but at which his wife did not appear. After supper cards were produced, and it was frequently four in the morning before the gentlemen were heard driving away from the castle; sometimes they remained until the next night.

But the day came when Luzano ceased to be a branch of the military casino at K----. The life there suddenly became very quiet, and various disagreeable facts came to light which had been disregarded in the whirl of gaiety. Then first little Erika saw her mother, pencil in hand, patiently adding up her husband's debts, while Strachinsky, his hands clasped behind him, and a cigarette between his teeth, paced the room, dictating amounts to her.

In addition to losses at play and in unfortunate speculations, he had magnanimously put his name to various notes of his distinguished friends.

Emma did not even frown, but exerted herself in every way,--sold her trinkets and almost every valuable piece of furniture, that her husband might meet his liabilities, treating him all the while with the forbearance traditional in model wives, in order to save him from any depressing consciousness of his position.

Was he conscious of it? If he were, he was entirely successful in concealing any consequent depression. The morning after the first painful revelation of his indebtedness, he skipped with the gayest air imaginable into the dining-room, where the family were already assembled at the breakfast-table, and exhorted all present to economize, and especially not to put too much butter on their bread, afterwards discoursing wittily upon 'poverty and magnanimity.'

To lighten his burden,--perhaps to disguise his insensibility from her own heart,--Emma persuaded him that his course had been the result solely of warm-hearted imprudence and an exaggerated nobility of character.

This view of the case was eagerly adopted by his vanity. He paraded his martyr's nimbus, and with a self-satisfied sigh styled himself a Don Quixote.

Nothing could really be farther from Don Quixote's idealistic and unselfish craze than his utter egotism, in its thin veil of sentimentality. And as for his martyrdom, it was easily seen through. None of the misfortunes brought upon himself by himself did he ever allow to affect his existence. He possessed a kind of cunning intelligence that never forsook him, and that enabled him in the midst of ruin to insure his own personal ease.

But how could Emma have borne at that comparatively early period to see him as he really was? She seized upon every excuse for him; she patched up her damaged illusions; she would support, restrain him, develop all that was really noble in him.

In her jealous ambition to make his home so delightful that he would never look for entertainment elsewhere, she exerted herself to the utmost, pandered to his love of eating, even cooked herself when they were no longer able to bear the expense of such a cook as he had been accustomed to, tried to conform her intellectual interests to his lack of any such,--in short, did everything to strengthen the tie between herself and him. She succeeded completely: she made the tie so strong that no loosening of it was possible.

She tried to withdraw him from all outside influences, to win him wholly to herself, and she succeeded; her presence, her tenderness, became an absolute necessity of existence to him; he had never so adored her even during their honeymoon.

Good heavens! now she would have given everything in the world for any breach between them that could be widened beyond all possibility of healing. It was too late; she must drag on the burden with which she had laden herself; it was her duty; she could not sink beneath it; she had no right to.

But in spite of all her efforts her nerves at length gave way. She became irritable. At times she grieved over the change which she saw in him; at other times the thought would suggest itself that this change was merely superficial, that he had never really been any other than at present. Then her blood would seem to run cold; she could have screamed. No, no, she would not see!

There is nothing sadder in this world than the dutiful, tortured life of a woman with a husband whom she has ceased to love.