Samuel Brohl quailed with horror.  He tried to speak, but his tongue was powerless to move.  He made desperate efforts to unloose it; he finally succeeded in moving his lips, and he murmured: 

“Is it you, Abel?  I believed you dead.”

Evidently Count Abel, the veritable Abel Larinski, was not dead.  He was on his feet, his eyes were terribly wide open, and his face never had worn more life-like colouring.  Nothing remained but to believe that he had been buried alive, and that he had been resuscitated.  In coming forth from the tomb, he had carried with him a portion of its dust; his hair was covered with a singular powder of an earthy hue, and at intervals he shook himself as though to make it fall from him.

With the exception of this there was nothing alarming in his appearance; but a mocking, half-crafty smile played about his lips.  After a long pause, he said to Samuel: 

“Yes, it is indeed I. You did not expect me?”

“Are you sure that you are not dead?” rejoined Samuel.

“Perfectly sure,” he replied, once more shaking a mass of dust from his head.  “Does my return incommode you, Samuel Brohl?” he added.  “Your name is Samuel, I believe; it is a pretty name.  Why have you taken mine?  You must give it back to me.”

“Not to-day,” pleaded Samuel, in a stifled voice, “nor to-morrow, nor the day after to-morrow; but after the marriage.”

Count Abel burst out laughing, which was by no means his habit, and which therefore greatly surprised Samuel.  Then he cried: 

“It is I she will marry—­she will be the Countess Larinski.”

Suddenly the door opened again, and Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz appeared, robed in white like a bride, a crown on her head, a bouquet in her hand.  She bent her steps towards Samuel, but the apparition arrested her progress, saying: 

“It is not he whom you love; it is my history.  Do you not see that this is a false Pole?  His father was a German Jew, who kept a tavern.  Here it was that this hero grew up.  I will relate to you how.”

Here Samuel put his hand over his mouth, and stammered:  “Oh, for mercy’s sake, say nothing!”

Heeding him not, the apparition continued:  “Yes, Samuel Brohl is a hero.  For five years he was the pledged lover of an old woman, and he fulfilled all the duties of his post.  This cherished hero well earned his money.  Are you not eager to be called Mme. Brohl?”

With these words, he opened wide his arms to Mlle. Moriaz, who fixed upon him a gaze at the same time astonishing and tender, and straining her to his bosom, kissed her hair and her crown.