He became a railway president and amassed a great fortune, but was not so successful a husband as he was a financier.

The result was that the Sicilian girl, after some years of unhappiness and suffering, deserted him and returned to her own country, leaving her child, then three years old, behind her.

To be frank with you, it was said at the time that my mother's mind had become unbalanced, or she would not have abandoned me to the care of a loveless father, but I prefer to think that she had come to hate her husband so bitterly that she could have no love for his child or else she feared that her terrible mother would kill me if I came into her power.

Her flight mattered little to my father, except that it made him more stern and tyrannical toward me.

He saw me very seldom and confided my education to servants.