negress, she had only to give me one glance,
and I felt as if I were in Heaven."

A WIDOW

This story was told during the hunting season at the Chateau Baneville.
The autumn had been rainy and sad. The red leaves, instead of rustling
under the feet, were rotting under the heavy downfalls.

The forest was as damp as it could be. From it came an odor of must,
of rain, of soaked grass and wet earth; and the sportsmen, their backs
hunched under the downpour, mournful dogs, with tails between their
legs and hairs sticking to their sides, and the young women, with their
clothes drenched, returned every evening, tired in body and in mind.

After dinner, in the large drawing-room, everybody played lotto, without
enjoyment, while the wind whistled madly around the house. Then they
tried telling stories like those they read in books, but no one was able
to invent anything amusing. The hunters told tales of wonderful shots
and of the butchery of rabbits; and the women racked their brains for
ideas without revealing the imagination of Scheherezade. They were about
to give up this diversion when a young woman, who was idly caressing the
hand of an old maiden aunt, noticed a little ring made of blond hair,
which she had often seen, without paying any attention to it.

She fingered it gently and asked, "Auntie, what is this ring? It looks
as if it were made from the hair of a child."

The old lady blushed, grew pale, then answered in a trembling voice: "It
is sad, so sad that I never wish to speak of it. All the unhappiness
of my life comes from that. I was very young then, and the memory has
remained so painful that I weep every time I think of it."

Immediately everybody wished to know the story, but the old lady refused
to tell it. Finally, after they had coaxed her for a long time, she
yielded. Here is the story:

"You have often heard me speak of the Santeze family, now extinct. I
knew the last three male members of this family. They all died in the
same manner; this hair belongs to the last one. He was thirteen when he
killed himself for me. That seems strange to you, doesn't it?

"Oh! it was a strange family--mad, if you will, but a charming madness,
the madness of love. From father to son, all had violent passions which
filled their whole being, which impelled them to do wild things, drove
them to frantic enthusiasm, even to crime. This was born in them, just
as burning devotion is in certain souls. Trappers ha