Prince Zilah -- Volume 3

lled in Andras all happiness and all faith, the Hungarian prin

with the perfidy of a coward. Yes, at the door of the church, when it was too late, or rather, at a time when the blow would be surer and the wound more deadl

oung man by the throat, and strangled him on the spot; but

erday," said the servant,

! Where ha

re he was going, however, but to America, somewhere. We only know, the coachman Pierre, and myself, that t

little, the s

honor to speak t

asked

with a humble bu

and there is any question of the package which I to

" said

he would not let the Count know that I

u mean? Explain yourself!

vitation to a wedding, and I did not carry out the Count's instructions until this morning. But, as Monseigneur was not at home, I took the train to Mais

face of the servant, who was a little di

the package to be del

t to tell the Count t

y?" repea

done; and, indeed, he had a right to think so. I am very careful, Monse

secret! But the domestic was evidently ignorant what a commission Menko had confided to him: in his eyes, the package, containing such

ad yet been celebrated. It was as atrocious, but not so cowardly. Menko had wished to attack Marsa, rather than Andras; this was visible in the express commands given to his valet. And upon what a trifle had it depended, whether the name

soon bring there the woman he then adored, but whom he now despised and hated. Oh! he wo

New World, would this Michel Menko

not embarked at Havre. Perhaps he had not quitted Europe. He might, some day

ski coldly; then, suddenly emerging from his retirement, and trying to take up his life again; appearing at the meetings of the Hungarian aid society, of which he was president; showing himself at the races, at the theatre, or

in which Prince Andras mingled, had tried to find out why he had broken so suddenly with the woman he had certainly married for love. Public curiosity, aroused and excited, had sought to divine the secre

urned suddenly to another subject; forgot the rupture of Marsa and Andras, and saw in Zilah only a su

ce, with its kindly eyes and grave smile, was now constantly overshadowed. He spoke less, and thought more. On the subject of his sadness and his grief, Andras never uttere

thing, and at once. The blow was too direct and too cruelly simple

d them, or crammed them one by one down Menko's throat! But who could have suspected such an infamy? Menko! A man of honor

the old Hungarian had met the young man, he would at least have gotten rid of part of his bile. But the angry thought that he, Varhely, had been associated in a

to struggle against his own temperament when he saw Andr

ing is dark about us, and our endless night is traversed by morbid visions, and peopled with phantoms. The sick man-for the one who suffers such torture is sick-would willingly seek a new sorrow, like those wounded men who, seized with frenzy, open their wounds themselves, a

of his loyalty against the many infamies to be met with in th

self, were worshippers of the ideal, all dreamers of better things, all lovers of love, were inevitably doomed to deception, treason, and the stupid ironies of fate. And, full of anger against himself, his pessimism of to-day sneering at his confidenc

, true nature would come to

an, and the lie of one woman, to be co

nd Menko? He had no right to hate any one else; he had no enem

al addressed to "Prince Zilah," and, on unfolding it, Andras's attention was attracted to tw

an unknown hand, and the red marks were evidently intended

contained, to cast this one into the fire without reading it. For a moment he held it in his fing

then with a dull rage, the two paragraphs, o

ess Z., whose beauty was recently crowned with a glorious coronet, has been taken, after a consultation of the princes of science (there are princes in all grades), to the establishment of Dr. Sims,

rders of Dr. Fargeas had been executed. She was in an insane asylum,

aris," and the one which followed it; and Zilah, impel

sion to his marriage-worse than that, the very history of his marriage placed in an outrageous manner next to the paragraph in which his name was almost openly written. The editor of the soci

of Paris), as dark-browed as the night, as beautiful as the day. The great lord was of a certain age, that is, an uncertain age. The beautiful Athenian or Georgian, or Circassian, was young. The great lord was generally considered to be imprudent. But what is to be done when one loves? Marry or don't marry, says Rabelais or Moliere. Perhaps they both said it. Well, at all events, the great lord married. It appears, if well- informed people are to be believed, that the great Wallachian lord and the beautiful Georgian did not pass two hours after their marriage beneath the same roof. The very day of their wedding, quietly, and without scandal, they separated, and the reason of this rupture has for a long time puzzled Parisian high-life. It was remarked, however, that the separation of the newly-married pair was coincident with the disappearance of a very fashionable attache who, some years

his suffering was a secret; he had never had an idea that any one could expose it to the curiosity of the crowd, as this editor of L'Actualite had done. He felt an increased rage against the invisible Michel Menko, who had disappeared after his in

l soon find out. Monsieur Puck must be le

was about to go out, when Y

in a frown. He could not repress a movement of anger when he perc

aint-Roch. Drinking in the fresh air, under the striped awning of the Cafe de la Rotunde, he read the journals, one after the other, or watched the sparrows fly

t by the wooden file, like a flag. With a rapid glance, he fell straight upon the Hungarian names which interested him-Deak sometimes, sometimes Andrassy; and fr

e trees, scanning 'L'Actualite', when he suddenly uttered an oath of anger (an Hun

was no chance for doubt; the indistinct nationality of the great lord spoken of thinly veiled the Magyar characteristics of Andras, and the paragraph which preceded the "Little Parisian Romance"

ly had onl

e scarcely ever reads the journals; but

hotel, thinking this: that there always exist

ble, he saw that his surmise was only too correct, a

he asked Andras, who wa

marked paper, folded

goin

read tha

ed part o

circulation whatever, it lives from its advertise

it. But they have mixed up in this scandal the name of the woman to wh

is Monsieur-how does he sign himself?

imagine that a man can live in the ideal. At

he moved to

going?" asked

fice of th

be read and talked of by all Paris if you take any notice of it, and it will be imme

ple will only do what their trade obliges them to. But, before every

ill accom

that; but it is probable that to-morrow I

due

act

onsieur

-I regard as an accomplice of their infamy any man who makes allusion to it with either tongue or pen. And, my dear Varhe

odd tone, pulling his rough moustache,