The brilliant rose-white and gold saloons were crowded, and owing to the pleasant coolness of the air there were hundreds of little tables pushed far out into the street, at which groups of persons were seated, enjoying ices, wine, or coffee, and congratulating each other on the agreeable news of the steady decrease of the pestilence that had ravaged the city.

I glanced covertly yet quickly round.

Yes! I was not mistaken--there was my quondam friend, my traitorous foe, sitting at his ease, leaning comfortably back in one chair, his feet put up on another.

He was smoking, and glancing now and then through the columns of the Paris "Figaro." He was dressed entirely in black--a hypocritical livery, the somber hue of which suited his fine complexion and perfectly handsome features to admiration.

On the little finger of the shapely hand that every now and then was raised to adjust his cigar, sparkled a diamond that gave out a myriad scintillations as it flashed in the evening light--it was of exceptional size and brilliancy, and even at a distance I recognized it as my own property! So!--a love-gift, signor, or an in memoriam of the dear and valued friend you have lost?
I wondered--watching him in dark scorn the while--then recollecting myself, I sauntered slowly toward him, and perceiving a disengaged table next to his, I drew a chair to it and sat down He looked at me in differently over the top of his newspaper--but there was nothing specially attractive in the sight of a white-haired man wearing smoke-colored spectacles, and he resumed his perusal of the "Figaro" immediately.