e so unbecoming in the mouth of a child
towards her mother.

"Yveline's answer to this was: 'I give you a month to reflect. If, at
the end of that month, we have not changed our way of living, I will
kill myself, since there is no other honorable issue left to my life.'

"Then she took herself off.

"At the end of a month, the Comtesse Samoris was giving balls and
suppers just the same as ever. Yveline then, under the pretext that she
had a bad toothache purchased a few drops of chloroform from a
neighboring chemist. The next day she purchased more; and, every time
she went out, she managed to procure small doses of the narcotic. She
filled a bottle with it.

"One morning she was found in bed, lifeless, and already quite cold,
with a cotton mask over her face.

"Her coffin was covered with flowers, the church was hung in white.
There was a large crowd at the funeral ceremony.

"Ah! well, if I had known--but you never can know--I would have married
that girl, for she was infernally pretty."

"And what became of the mother?"

"Oh! she shed a lot of tears over it. She has only begun to receive
visits again for the past week."

"And what explanation is given of the girl's death?"

"Oh! 'tis pretended that it was an accident caused by a new stove, the
mechanism of which got out of order. As a good many such accidents have
happened, the thing looks probable enough."

* * * * *

A PASSION

The sea was brilliant and unruffled, scarcely stirred, and on the pier
the entire town of Havre watched the ships as they came on.

They could be seen at a distance, in great numbers; some of them, the
steamers, with plumes of smoke; the others, the sailing vessels, drawn
by almost invisible tugs, lifting towards the sky their bare masts, like
leafless trees.

They hurried from every end of the horizon towards the narrow mouth of
the jetty which devoured these monsters; and they groaned, they
shrieked, they hissed while they spat out puffs of steam like animals
panting for breath.

Two young officers were walking on the landing-stage, where a number of
people were waiting, saluting or returning salutes, and sometimes
stopping to chat.

Suddenly, one of them, the taller, Paul d'Henricol, pressed the arm of
his comrade, Jean Renoldi, then, in a whisper, said:

"Hallo, here's Madame Poincot; give a good look at her. I assure you
that she's making eyes at you."

She was moving along on