"I am not going to Vienna to rejoin my mistress," he interposed.

"She never leaves me, she accompanies me everywhere; she is here." Abbe Miollens cast about him a startled, bewildered gaze, expecting to see a woman start out of some closet or come forward from behind some curtain.
"I tell you that she is here," repeated Samuel Brohl, pointing to an alabaster statuette, posed on a _piedouche_.

The statuette represented a woman bound tightly, on whom two Cossacks were inflicting the knout; the socle bore the inscription, "Polonia vincta et flagellata." The abbe's countenance became transformed in the twinkling of an eye, the wrinkles smoothed away from his brow, his mouth relaxed, a joyous light shone in his eyes.

"How well it is that I came!" thought he.

"And under what obligations M.Moriaz will be to me!" Turning towards Samuel he exclaimed: "I am simply a fool; I imagined--Ah! I comprehend, your mistress is Poland; this is delightful, and it is truly a union that is as sacred as marriage.