"Tout le monde vient a celui qui sait attendre." So wrote the great Napoleon. The virtue of the aphorism consists in the little words 'qui sait'. All the world comes to him who KNOWS HOW to wait, I knew this, and I had waited, and my world--a world of vengeance--came to me at last.

The slow-revolving wheel of Time brought me to the day before my strange wedding--the eve of my remarriage with my own wife! All the preparations were made--nothing was left undone that could add to the splendor of the occasion. For though the nuptial ceremony was to be somewhat quiet and private in character, and the marriage breakfast was to include only a few of our more intimate acquaintances, the proceedings were by no means to terminate tamely. The romance of these remarkable espousals was not to find its conclusion in bathos. No; the bloom and aroma of the interesting event were to be enjoyed in the evening, when a grand supper and ball, given by me, the happy and much-to-be-envied bridegroom, was to take place in the hotel which I had made my residence for so long. No expense was spared for this, the last entertainment offered by me in my brilliant career as a successful Count Cesare Oliva. After it, the dark curtain would fall on the played-out drama, never to rise again.

Everything that art, taste, and royal luxury could suggest was included in the arrangements for this brilliant ball, to which a hundred and fifty guests had been invited, not one of whom had refused to attend.