ty of an inventory; provided that said
omission of said inventory shall not injure their heirs and assigns, it
being understood that this deed of gift is, etc., etc." This clause
of the contract will explain the profound respect which monsieur le
president always testified for the wishes, and above all, for the
solitude of Madame de Bonfons. Women cited him as the most considerate
and delicate of men, pitied him, and even went so far as to find fault
with the passion and grief of Eugenie, blaming her, as women know so
well how to blame, with cruel but discreet insinuation.

"Madame de Bonfons must be very ill to leave her husband entirely alone.
Poor woman! Is she likely to get well? What is it? Something gastric?
A cancer?"--"She has grown perfectly yellow. She ought to consult some
celebrated doctor in Paris."--"How can she be happy without a child?
They say she loves her husband; then why not give him an heir?--in
his position, too!"--"Do you know, it is really dreadful! If it is the
result of mere caprice, it is unpardonable. Poor president!"

Endowed with the delicate perception which a solitary soul acquires
through constant meditation, through the exquisite clear-sightedness
with which a mind aloof from life fastens on all that falls within
its sphere, Eugenie, taught by suffering and by her later education to
divine thought, knew well that the president desired her death that he
might step into possession of their immense fortune, augmented by the
property of his uncle the notary and his uncle the abbe, whom it had
lately pleased God to call to himself. The poor solitary pitied
the president. Providence avenged her for the calculations and the
indifference of a husband who respected the hopeless passion on which
she spent her life because it was his surest safeguard. To give life to
a child would give death to his hopes,--the hopes of selfishness, the
joys of ambition, which the president cherished as he looked into the
future.

God thus flung piles of gold upon this prisoner to whom gold was a
matter of indifference, who longed for heaven, who lived, pious and
good, in holy thoughts, succoring the unfortunate in secret, and never
wearying of such deeds. Madame de Bonfons became a widow at thirty-six.
She is still beautiful, but with the beauty of a woman who is nearly
forty years of age. Her face is white and placid and calm; her voice
gentle and self-possessed; her manners are simple. She has the noblest
qu