wished it were
Bondon's blood. Great tears rolled down Bocardon's face, and gathering
at the ends of his scrubby moustache dripped in splashes on the marble
table.

"I loved her so tenderly, monsieur," said he.

The cry, so human, went straight to Aristide's heart. A sympathetic tear
glistened in his bright eyes. He was suddenly filled with an immense
pity for this grief-stricken, helpless giant. An odd feminine streak ran
through his nature and showed itself in queer places. Impulsively he
stretched out his hand.

"You're going?" asked Bocardon.

"No. A sign of good friendship."

They gripped hands across the table. A new emotion thrilled through the
facile Aristide.

"Bocardon, I devote myself to you," he cried, with a flamboyant gesture.
"What can I do?"

"Alas, nothing," replied the other, miserably.

"And Zette? What does she say to it all?"

The mountainous shoulders heaved with a shrug. "She denies everything.
She had never seen the letter until I showed it to her. She did not
know how it came into her room. As if that were possible!"

"It's improbable," said Aristide, gloomily.

They talked. Bocardon, in a choking voice, told the simple tale of their
married happiness. It had been a love-match, different from the ordinary
marriages of reason and arrangement. Not a cloud since their
wedding-day. They were called the turtle-doves of the Rue de la
Curatterie. He had not even manifested the jealousy justifiable in the
possessor of so beautiful a wife. He had trusted her implicitly. He was
certain of her love. That was enough. They had had one child, who died.
Grief had brought them even nearer each other. And now this stroke had
been dealt. It was a knife being turned round in his heart. It was
agony.

They walked back to the hotel together. Zette, who was sitting by the
desk in the bureau, rose and, without a word or look, vanished down
the passage. Bocardon, with a great sigh, took her place. It was
dinner-time. The half-dozen guests and frequenters filled for a moment
the little hall, some waiting to wash their hands at the primitive
_lavabo_ by the foot of the stairs. Aristide accompanied them into the
_salle a manger_, where he dined in solemn silence. The dinner over he
went out again, passing by the bureau where Bocardon, in its dim
recesses, was eating a sad meal brought to him by the melancholy
Euphemie. Zette, he conjectured, was dining in the kitchen. An
atmosphere of desolation impregna