chen busily arranging his parsley.

Thenceforth Jeanne was stubbornly bent on going down to the garden as
soon as ever she heard Madame Deberle's voice there. All Rosalie's
tittle-tattle regarding the next-door house she drank in greedily,
ever restless and inquisitive concerning its inmates and their doings;
and she would even slip out of the bedroom to keep watch from the
kitchen window. In the garden, ensconced in a small arm-chair which
was brought for her use from the drawing-room by Juliette's direction,
her eyes never quitted the family. Lucien she now treated with great
reserve, annoyed it seemed by his questions and antics, especially
when the doctor was present. On those occasions she would stretch
herself out as if wearied, gazing before her with her eyes wide open.
For Helene the afternoons were pregnant with anguish. She always
returned, however, returned in spite of the feeling of revolt which
wrung her whole being. Every day when, on his arrival home, Henri
printed a kiss on Juliette's hair, her heart leaped in its agony. And
at those moments, if to hide the agitation of her face she pretended
to busy herself with Jeanne, she would notice that the child was even
paler than herself, with her black eyes glaring and her chin twitching
with repressed fury. Jeanne shared in her suffering. When the mother
turned away her head, heartbroken, the child became so sad and so
exhausted that she had to be carried upstairs and put to bed. She
could no longer see the doctor approach his wife without changing
countenance; she would tremble, and turn on him a glance full of all
the jealous fire of a deserted mistress.

"I cough in the morning," she said to him one day. "You must come and
see for yourself."

Rainy weather ensued, and Jeanne became quite anxious that the doctor
should commence his visits once more. Yet her health had much
improved. To humor her, Helene had been constrained to accept two or
three invitations to dine with the Deberles.

At last the child's heart, so long torn by hidden sorrow, seemingly
regained quietude with the complete re-establishment of her health.
She would again ask Helene the old question--"Are you happy, mother
darling?"

"Yes, very happy, my pet," was the reply.

And this made her radiant. She must be pardoned her bad temper in the
past, she said. She referred to it as a fit which no effort of her own
will could prevent, the result of a headache that came on her
suddenly. So