Ah," he added, with a deep sigh, "my life has been a failure." M.de Breulh-Faverlay was a very different type of man to that which both his friends and his enemies popularly supposed him to be.

Upon the death of his uncle, he had plunged into the frivolous vortex of Parisian dissipation, but of this he had soon wearied.
All that he had cared for was to see the doings of his racehorse chronicled in the sporting journals, and occasionally to expend a few thousand francs in presents of jewelry to some fashionable actress.

But he had secretly longed for some more honorable manner of fulfilling his duties in life, and he had determined that before his marriage he would sell his stud and break with his old associates entirely; and now this wished-for marriage would never take place.
When he entered his club, the traces of his agitation were so visible upon his face, that some of the card-players stopped their game to inquire if Chambertin, the favorite for the Chantilly cup, had broken down.
"No, no," replied he, as he hurriedly made his way to the writing-room, "Chambertin is as sound as a bell." "What the deuce has happened to De Breulh ?" asked one of the members.
"Goodness gracious!" remarked the man to whom the question was addressed, "he seems in a hurry to write a letter." The gentleman was right.

M.de Breulh was writing a withdrawal from his demand for Sabine's hand to M.de Mussidan, and he found the task by no means an easy one, for on reading it over he found that there was a valid strain of bitterness throughout it, which would surely attract attention and perhaps cause embarrassing questions to be put to him.
"No," murmured he, "this letter is quite unworthy of me." And tearing it up, he began another, in which he strung together several conventional excuses, alleging the difficulty of breaking off his former habits and of an awkward entanglement which he had been unable to break with, as he had anticipated.

When this little masterpiece of diplomacy was completed, he rang the bell, and, handing it to one of the club servants, told him to take it to the Count de Mussidan's house.