of the happy, joyous, witty and amorous times when manners
were so graceful and lips so approachable.

"A deep voice male me jump. Patience had come in, beaming, and held out
his hands to me.

"He looked into my eyes with the sly look which one takes when divulging
secrets of love, and, with a Napoleonic gesture, he showed me his
sumptuous parlor, his park, the three women, who had reappeared in the
back of it, then, in a triumphant voice, where the note of pride was
prominent, he said:

"'And to think that I began with nothing--my wife and my
sister-in-law!'"

ABANDONED

"I really think you must be mad, my dear, to go for a country walk in
such weather as this. You have had some very strange notions for the last
two months. You drag me to the seaside in spite of myself, when you have
never once had such a whim during all the forty-four years that we have
been married. You chose Fecamp, which is a very dull town, without
consulting me in the matter, and now you are seized with such a rage for
walking, you who hardly ever stir out on foot, that you want to take a
country walk on the hottest day of the year. Ask d'Apreval to go with
you, as he is ready to gratify all your whims. As for me, I am going back
to have a nap."

Madame de Cadour turned to her old friend and said:

"Will you come with me, Monsieur d'Apreval?"

He bowed with a smile, and with all the gallantry of former years:

"I will go wherever you go," he replied.

"Very well, then, go and get a sunstroke," Monsieur de Cadour said; and
he went back to the Hotel des Bains to lie down for an hour or two.

As soon as they were alone, the old lady and her old companion set off,
and she said to him in a low voice, squeezing his hand:

"At last! at last!"

"You are mad," he said in a whisper. "I assure you that you are mad.
Think of the risk you are running. If that man--"

She started.

"Oh! Henri, do not say that man, when you are speaking of him."

"Very well," he said abruptly, "if our son guesses anything, if he has
any suspicions, he will have you, he will have us both in his power. You
have got on without seeing him for the last forty years. What is the
matter with you to-day?"

They had been going up the long street that leads from the sea to the
town, and now they turned to the right, to go to Etretat. The white road
stretched in front of him, then under a blaze of brilliant sunshine, so
they went on slowly in the burning heat. S