to the
railway station in Paris, she left him without even saying good-by.

III

When he met her in the omnibus, next day, she appeared to him to be
changed and thinner, and she said to him: "I want to speak to you; we
will get down at the Boulevard."

As soon as they were on the pavement, she said:

"We must bid each other good-by; I cannot meet you again." "But why?"
he asked. "Because I cannot; I have been culpable, and I will not be so
again."

Then he implored her, tortured by his love, but she replied firmly: "No,
I cannot, I cannot." He, however, only grew all the more excited and
promised to marry her, but she said again: "No," and left him.

For a week he did not see her. He could not manage to meet her, and, as
he did not know her address, he thought that he had lost her altogether.
On the ninth day, however, there was a ring at his bell, and when he
opened the door, she was there. She threw herself into his arms and did
not resist any longer, and for three months they were close friends. He
was beginning to grow tired of her, when she whispered something to him,
and then he had one idea and wish: to break with her at any price. As,
however, he could not do that, not knowing how to begin, or what to
say, full of anxiety through fear of the consequences of his rash
indiscretion, he took a decisive step: one night he changed his lodgings
and disappeared.

The blow was so heavy that she did not look, for the man who had
abandoned her, but threw herself at her mother's knees and confessed her
misfortune, and, some months after, gave birth to a boy.

IV

Years passed, and Francois Tessier grew old, without there having been
any alteration in his life. He led the dull, monotonous life of an
office clerk, without hope and without expectation. Every day he got up
at the same time, went through the same streets, went through the same
door, past the same porter, went into the same office, sat in the same
chair, and did the same work. He was alone in the world, alone during
the day in the midst of his different colleagues, and alone at night in
his bachelor's lodgings, and he laid by a hundred francs a month against
old age.

Every Sunday he went to the Champs-Elysees, to watch the elegant people,
the carriages and the pretty women, and the next day he used to say to
one of his colleagues: "The return of the carriages from the Bois
du Boulogne was very brilliant yesterday." One fine Sunday morning,