Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/396

, and begged him to come and visit them in his house Rue Saint Honoré.

The chevalier took care not to refuse an invitation so favorable in his passion. His visits became frequent, and his love for the young girl grew day by day; so that finally, persuaded that she really loved chevalier Menars, she consented to give him her hand.

Several days after the betrothal, Angela, whilst looking from her window, saw a fine regiment of cavalry on the march to Spain defile before her. Passing before Vertua's house, one of the soldiers reined in his horse, and, freeing himself from the ranks, made several signs of adieu to the young girl. This soldier was the son of a neighbor of Vertua, named Duvernet. Brought up almost from infancy quite near her, this young man had accustomed himself to loving the young girl, whom he saw every day; and he had only ceased visiting Vertua on learning the object of the attentions of chevalier Menars, and the good reception that he received. Then knowing that his love was hopeless, he had enlisted.

Vertua's daughter could not well hide the impression that she had received, so that her father and the chevalier himself might have guessed that something strange was passing in her heart. But Angela did not allow her secret to escape; the assiduous attentions of the chevalier besides effaced the remembrance of Duvernet from her mind, and marriage, which soon launched her into a new kind of existence, was an aurora of happiness which was only saddened by the sudden death of Vertua. The old gambler died unrepenting the sin of his life. At his last moments his fingers closed as if to shuffle, cut and deal the cards; and the last words which escaped from his lips with his last breath were the banker's cry:—"Loses! wins!"

When Angela saw herself left alone in the world with the chevalier, the remembrance of the last words of her father, and the agonizing crisis which had brought back to him before death his fatal gambler's instinct, came to make her