ad if he did not come. Once she took out the stiletto she had
concealed in the bosom of her cloak, and looked at it. She had always
carried it when among the beasts at the menagerie, but had never yet
used it.

Time passed. She felt ill; she became blind with pain. Presently the
servant entered with a telegram. His master would not be back until the
next morning.

Very well, she would return in the morning. She gave him money. He was
not to say that she had called. In the Boulevard Montparnasse she took
a cab. To the menagerie, she said to the driver. How strange it all
looked: the Invalides, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de
la Concorde! The innumerable lights were so near and yet so far: it was
a kink of the brain, but she seemed withdrawn from them, not they from
her. A woman passed with a baby in her arms. The light from a kiosk fell
on it as she passed. What a pretty, sweet face it had. Why did it not
have a pretty, delicate Breton cap? As she went on, that kept beating
in her brain--why did not the child wear a dainty Breton cap--a white
Breton cap? The face kept peeping from behind the lights--without the
dainty Breton cap.

The menagerie at last. She dismissed the cab, went to a little door at
the back of the building, and knocked. She was admitted. The care-taker
exclaimed with pleasure. She wished to visit the animals? He would go
with her; and he picked up a light. No, she would go alone. How were
Hector and Balzac, and Antoinette? She took the keys. How cool and
pleasant they were to the touch! The steel of the lantern too--how
exquisitely soothing! He must lie down again: she would wake him as she
came out. No, no, she would go alone.

She went to cage after cage. At last to that of the largest lions. There
was a deep answering purr to her soft call. As she entered, she saw a
heap moving in one corner--a lion lately bought. She spoke, and there
was an angry growl. She wheeled to leave the cage, but her cloak caught
the door, and it snapped shut.

Too late. A blow brought her to the ground. She had made no cry, and now
she lay so still!

The watchman had fallen asleep again. In the early morning he
remembered. The greyish golden dawn was creeping in, when he found
her with two lions protecting, keeping guard over her, while another
crouched snarling in a corner. There was no mark on her face.

The point of the stiletto which she had carried in her cloak had pierced
her when she fell.