One afternoon of the autumn of 1876, toward dusk, a young man of pleasing appearance rang at the door of a small apartment on the third floor of an old Roman house.

On its being opened he enquired for Madame Merle; whereupon the servant, a neat, plain woman, with a French face and a lady's maid's manner, ushered him into a diminutive drawing-room and requested the favour of his name.

"Mr.Edward Rosier," said the young man, who sat down to wait till his hostess should appear.
The reader will perhaps not have forgotten that Mr.Rosier was an ornament of the American circle in Paris, but it may also be remembered that he sometimes vanished from its horizon.

He had spent a portion of several winters at Pau, and as he was a gentleman of constituted habits he might have continued for years to pay his annual visit to this charming resort.

In the summer of 1876, however, an incident befell him which changed the current not only of his thoughts, but of his customary sequences.