fatal to many of them.

In spite of difficulties, the Countess had maintained her independence
with considerable skill until the day when, by an inexplicable want of
prudence, she took occasion to close her salon. So deep and sincere was
the interest that she inspired, that those who usually filled her
drawing-room felt a lively anxiety when the news was spread; then, with
the frank curiosity characteristic of provincial manners, they went to
inquire into the misfortune, grief, or illness that had befallen Mme.
de Dey.

To all these questions, Brigitte, the housekeeper, answered with the
same formula: her mistress was keeping her room, and would see no one,
not even her own servants. The almost claustral lives of dwellers in
small towns fosters a habit of analysis and conjectural explanation of
the business of everybody else; so strong is it, that when everyone had
exclaimed over poor Mme. de Dey (without knowing whether the lady was
overcome by joy or sorrow), each one began to inquire into the causes
of her sudden seclusion.

"If she were ill, she would have sent for the doctor," said gossip
number one; "now the doctor has been playing chess in my house all day.
He said to me, laughing, that in these days there is only one disease,
and that, unluckily, it is incurable."

The joke was hazarded discreetly. Women and men, elderly folk and young
girls, forthwith betook themselves to the vast fields of conjecture.
Everyone imagined that there was some secret in it, and every head was
busy with the secret. Next day the suspicions became malignant.
Everyone lives in public in a small town, and the women-kind were the
first to find out that Brigitte had laid in an extra stock of
provisions. The thing could not be disputed. Brigitte had been seen in
the market-place betimes that morning, and, wonderful to relate, she
had bought the one hare to be had. The whole town knew that Mme. de Dey
did not care for game. The hare became a starting point for endless
conjectures.

Elderly gentlemen, taking their constitutional, noticed a sort of
suppressed bustle in the Countess's house; the symptoms were the more
apparent because the servants were at evident pains to conceal them.
The man-servant was beating a carpet in the garden. Only yesterday no
one would have remarked the fact, but to-day everybody began to build
romances upon that harmless piece of household stuff. Everyone had a
version.

On the following day, that on whi