light in Pierrette's room, looked
through the keyhole, and could see nothing.

"Pierrette," she said, "are you ill?"

"No, cousin," said Pierrette, surprised.

"Why is your candle burning at this time of night? Open the door; I
must know what this means."

Pierrette went to the door bare-footed, and as soon as Sylvie entered
the room she saw the cord, which Pierrette had forgotten to put away,
not dreaming of a surprise. Sylvie jumped upon it.

"What is that for?" she asked.

"Nothing, cousin."

"Nothing!" she cried. "Always lying; you'll never get to heaven that
way. Go to bed; you'll take cold."

She asked no more questions and went away, leaving Pierrette terrified
by her unusual clemency. Instead of exploding with rage, Sylvie had
suddenly determined to surprise Pierrette and the colonel together, to
seize their letters and confound the two lovers who were deceiving
her. Pierrette, inspired by a sense of danger, sewed the letters into
her corset and covered them with calico.

Here end the loves of Pierrette and Brigaut.

Pierrette rejoiced in the thought that Jacques had determined to hold
no communication with her for some days, because her cousin's
suspicions would be quieted by finding nothing to feed them. Sylvie
did in fact spend the next three nights on her legs, and each evening
in watching the innocent colonel, without discovering either in him or
in Pierrette, or in the house or out of it, anything that betrayed
their understanding. She sent Pierrette to confession, and seized that
moment to search the child's room, with the method and penetration of
a spy or a custom-house officer. She found nothing. Her fury reached
the apogee of human sentiments. If Pierrette had been there she would
certainly have struck her remorselessly. To a woman of her temper,
jealousy was less a sentiment than an occupation; she existed in it,
it made her heart beat, she felt emotions hitherto completely unknown
to her; the slightest sound or movement kept her on the qui vive; she
watched Pierrette with gloomy intentness.

"That miserable little wretch will kill me," she said.

Sylvie's severity to her cousin reached the point of refined cruelty,
and made the deplorable condition of the poor girl worse daily. She
had fever regularly, and the pains in her head became intolerable. By
the end of the week even the visitors at the house noticed her
suffering face, which would have touched to pity all selfishness less
c