rd from Madeleine, from the man-servant, from the
waiting-maid.

One evening Du Roy, who liked sweet dishes, said, "How is it we never
have sweets at dinner?"

His wife replied, cheerfully, "That is quite true. I never think about
them. It is all through Charles, who hated--"

He cut her short in a fit of impatience he was unable to control,
exclaiming, "Hang it all! I am sick of Charles. It is always Charles
here and Charles there, Charles liked this and Charles liked that. Since
Charles is dead, for goodness sake leave him in peace."

Madeleine looked at her husband in amazement, without being able to
understand his sudden anger. Then, as she was sharp, she guessed what
was going on within him; this slow working of posthumous jealousy,
swollen every moment by all that recalled the other. She thought it
puerile, may be, but was flattered by it, and did not reply.

He was vexed with himself at this irritation, which he had not been
able to conceal. As they were writing after dinner an article for the
next day, his feet got entangled in the foot mat. He kicked it aside,
and said with a laugh:

"Charles was always chilly about the feet, I suppose?"

She replied, also laughing: "Oh! he lived in mortal fear of catching
cold; his chest was very weak."

Du Roy replied grimly: "He has given us a proof of that." Then kissing
his wife's hand, he added gallantly: "Luckily for me."

But on going to bed, still haunted by the same idea, he asked: "Did
Charles wear nightcaps for fear of the draughts?"

She entered into the joke, and replied: "No; only a silk handkerchief
tied round his head."

George shrugged his shoulders, and observed, with contempt, "What a
baby."

From that time forward Charles became for him an object of continual
conversation. He dragged him in on all possible occasions, speaking of
him as "Poor Charles," with an air of infinite pity. When he returned
home from the office, where he had been accosted twice or thrice as
Forestier, he avenged himself by bitter railleries against the dead man
in his tomb. He recalled his defects, his absurdities, his littleness,
enumerating them with enjoyment, developing and augmenting them as
though he had wished to combat the influence of a dreaded rival over the
heart of his wife. He would say, "I say, Made, do you remember the day
when that duffer Forestier tried to prove to us that stout men were
stronger than spare ones?"

Then he sought to learn a number of