suppliant tone, that the Black Chevalier glanced at her in spite of himself, and for the first time his expression lost something of its sternness.

"Good, it is decided!" exclaimed the fascinating brunette, overjoyed by this first success; "I propose to keep you; and why should you leave us so early? for you are your own master, you have neither wife nor child."

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than Jarnonville pushed the two courtesans roughly aside and left the card room, muttering in a hollow voice:

"No child! no child! Ah, no! I have no child! I have lost my most cherished treasure, my joy in the present, my hope for the future. That angel, a single glance from whose eyes banished all my cares, whose voice opened my heart to a felicity so pure that I lived in a veritable heaven on earth!—I have her no longer—death struck her down! In God's name, what had she done that she should die, O inexorable fate!"