an invalid and such a religious man! But in those days, the dangerous, the successful man, the accomplice, upon whom we flung at once, knocking him about, almost strangling him in our efforts to tear his secret from him to learn which one, the Princess, Mme. de Servigny, or my wife was his accomplice!

Gevrier. An enigma of three! And did they defend themselves?

Marettes. Marvelously not one flinched. The rooms were immediately searched-not an indication! Nothing!

Gevrier. But he! What defence? What pretext?

Marettes. Very simple. He maintained that he had gone to fetch a book from a small library which was an anteroom to the bedrooms occupied by the accused.

Gevrier. Easy to ascertain! No one looks for a book in the night without a light! Had he even used matches it would have been possible to find the remains!

Marettes. Nothing was found! Gevrier. Therefore another indication of his guilt.

Marettes. Of course; but against him, as well as against one of the three women, the proof, you see, the material, the unquestionable proof, we lacked!

Gevrier. Naturally! He did not think of killing himself!

Marettes. No, and that is just where reality differs from art, even the greatest art. To commit suicide in such a case is an admirable effect, but it is an acknowledgment of the crime and gives away the culprit,

the unfortunate woman who, maddened by a too strong grief, will not be able to restrain the cry which will betray her. On the other hand, to keep such control, to remain easy and self-contained, as did Villebrune, and to answer our questions almost with a smile, is to mislead suspicion and calm all doubt, and, with the aid of time, even to convey the idea that no crime has taken place.

us to do?

Gevrier. Then, what did you do? Marettes. What would you expect Nothing extraordinary! Life is so much less heroic than the stage, so much more commonplace! The shooting did not take place. We separated immediately. Back in Munich our intimacy was at an end, without, nevertheless, our worldly relations being entirely destroyed. The Prince of Harneim stayed at his estate. Then, a few weeks later, Servigny was appointed to Russia, and I to London. I have never seen the two other husbands since, and I suppose they have gone through the same phases of conjectures as I have. Firstly, suspicion was awakened; then the close watching of every act, every word, every gesture of my wife; then, by degrees, nothing feeding my suspicion, came relief, and also the conviction that the deceived husband, if there was one, could only be one of the two others. Finally, twenty years ago, when the time arrived for me to resign, I found Villebrune here, who very simply became again the friend of the household. There is the story.

Gevrier. And you have never found the clue to the enigma?

Gevrier. Affected you? What a supposition!

Marettes. Very foolish, indeed, applied to the poor, dear Antoinette, the Candid Fairy, as you used to call her, always astonished by the least evil, having lived here, during her last twenty years, her unvarying daily life with her little occupations and I mine, her perpetual tapestry and her church embroideries! [going back to the chest] Come and help me to go through these old papers, so that we may have finished when Villebrune comes in.

Gevrier. [helping him] How strange that Villebrune should never have spoken to me about this adventure of his!

Marettes. Oh, well! Does he even remember it now? He looks so little like what he was once! A mummy, like us. [For several minutes the two friends go through the papers, which they burn and add to the piles already made. Suddenly, while reading a letter, Gevrier smothers an exclamation.]

I

Marettes. [snatching it away] want to know-[looking at it]—Antoinette's handwriting! [reading hastily] "After the terror of that horrible night, I will not and cannot see you any more! The terror in which I live every second of my existence is stronger than my love! Have pity! Do not attempt to see me! Burn my letters! Destroy all that remains of our fault, our dear fault, at which my soul is horrified, but which my heart will never be able to forget. I am writing to you in case I have no strength or time to speak to you this evening at the Embassy. In a fortnight we start for London. It is all over! Good-bye, Julian!" [choking with fury] Julian! It is Villebrune-no doubtand all that she says! "The terror of the night."-"The Embassy.""London."-It was she! The miserable woman!-the vile creature!she, who remained by my side for thirty-five years with her mask of innocent hypocrisy and falsehood!who kept her secret until death! God! what is woman? - Woman! · And that is what we love! what we caress and regret! That is what I have been mad enough to weep over!-Imbecile! [He sinks into a chair, his face

Gevrier. Are you mad, to get into such a state?

Marettes. [falls into a state of collapse, but, with a last effort of violence] The joy of killing!—

Gevrier. You are talking like a madman, my poor friend! We are no longer in 1869. The creature who deceived you has ceased to exist, ac

Marettes. What!-He?Villebrune. [a decrepit invalid, supporting himself by two sticks] Upon my soul, my dear neighbor, I must indeed be very anxious to see you, for with this damned foggy weather I cannot put one leg before the other. [approaching] Now then -and you? How goes it with you?

Gevrier. [answering hastily for Marettes] Much better.

Villebrune. That's right. You must be reasonable, for the time we still have to live!

Gevrier. Let us try and make good

use of it. I was telling Marettes just now that a game of whist

Villebrune. A game of whist! Excellent panacea for dark and gloomy thoughts! It just suits me! Gevrier, my good fellow, bring the table over. [Gevrier hastens to place the table, while Villebrune, who is accustomed to do so, goes and fetches the cards and candlesticks.]

Marettes. I will do the lighting! [crushing Antoinette's letter, he ignites it and slowly lights the candles.]

Villebrune. [already seated, watching the burning letter] Hello! Your wife's handwriting! [turning to the chest] And all that box of papers from her? I am not surprised-it was her mania to write! [quickly to Marettes] You will burn yourself!

Marettes. [throwing away the charred paper.] Never again! [He lowers the shades, sits down, shuffles the cards with the inward joy at finding himself again at his favorite pastime, then, very quietly to the valet:] Peter, these gentlemen will remain for dinner!

the Porto Rican pilot was climbing on board in response to the Blue Peter" flying from the ship's masthead, and we were entering San Juan harbor under the guns of old “El Moro." Looming high above us on one side were the stern walls of the fortress, scarred and seamed by centuries of resistance to the elements and the shots of many pirate-brigands and of various navies from Sir Francis Drake to Admiral Sampson.

Straight ahead and leading around the bay to the left toward Catano and Bayamon were diminutive mountains dotted with royal and cocoanut palms waving their grateful acknowledgments to the soft ocean breezes and a "good-night " to the sun-kissed hills. On one side was the old Spanish city, with its terraced rows of massive brick houses of Moorish architecture; on the opposite side, the banana-thatched huts of the native peons. Truly, it was a picture such as one would keep forever hung in memory's gallery.

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64

Upon the ship's coming to anchor, the natives put out from shore in their small sailboats laden with various wares, consisting of cigars, pineapples, cocoanuts, and the like, to sella de Cappy." The natives, or Spig-itiis," as they are termed, being unable to speak "Americano," endeavored to make themselves understood by violent gesticulations, and one is reminded of Pat's definition of his new dictionary, "The words be fine, but, bedad, I can't make much of the story."

Upon going ashore at San Juan the visitor is impressed first with the ex

ceedingly narrow streets-so narrow in fact, are many, that the cumbersome ox-carts cannot pass each other without driving one wheel of each cart onto its corresponding sidewalk. The sidewalks, in turn, are so narrow that two people cannot walk abreast. The houses, residence and business alike, in the city of San Juan are almost without exception built of brick and two stories high, the walls in many instances being nearly three feet thick. The roof, also, is of brick, and in the rear of each house is a court. If the occupant be fairly prosperous, one is likely to find a goat or two, a dozen fowls, a pig, from one to twenty children, the family wash (very limited), the culinary department, and, that due sanitary precautions may be observed (?), a large stone filter through which the water for drinking purposes passes drop by drop into an urn receptacle placed beneath. The windows and doors have no glass, nor is there necessity for the same, as the temperature rarely rises above 85° or sinks below. 60°. Wooden blinds answer all purposes.

Passing along the streets, one is struck "mentally with, physically by, the great number of beggars which throng the city thoroughfares, veritable beggars of the poor; for a more poverty-stricken, hopeless, filthy, degenerate being than the average native peon, would be hard to find. Indeed, there are everywhere, at all times and in most places, and visible to any one with eyes to see, sights of such a nature as to be not permissible of discussion in an article of this kind.

Porto Rico, Porto Ricans, and