and:

"And turning toward him, she said:

"'You are--you are going to get married?'

"He replied decidedly" 'Yes.'

"She took a step forward.

"'If you marry, I will kill myself! Do you hear?'

"He shrugged his shoulders and replied:

"'Well, then kill yourself!'

"She stammered out, almost choking with her violent emotion:

"'What do you say? What do you say? What do you say? Say it again!'

"He repeated:

"'Well, then kill yourself if you like!'

"With her face almost livid, she replied:

"'Do not dare me! I will throw myself from the window!'

"He began to laugh, walked toward the window, opened it, and bowing
with the gesture of one who desires to let some one else precede him, he
said:

"'This is the way. After you!'

"She looked at him for a second with terrible, wild, staring eyes. Then,
taking a run as if she were going to jump a hedge in the country, she
rushed past me and past him, jumped over the sill and disappeared.

"I shall never forget the impression made on me by that open window
after I had seen that body pass through it to fall to the ground. It
appeared to me in a second to be as large as the heavens and as hollow
as space. And I drew back instinctively, not daring to look at it, as
though I feared I might fall out myself.

"Jean, dumfounded, stood motionless.

"They brought the poor girl in with both legs broken. She will never
walk again.

"Jean, wild with remorse and also possibly touched with gratitude, made
up his mind to marry her.

"There you have it, old man."

It was growing dusk. The young woman felt chilly and wanted to go
home, and the servant wheeled the invalid chair in the direction of
the village. The painter walked beside his wife, neither of them having
exchanged a word for an hour.

This story appeared in Le Gaulois, December 17, 1883.

A VAGABOND

He was a journeyman carpenter, a good workman and a steady fellow,
twenty-seven years old, but, although the eldest son, Jacques Randel had
been forced to live on his family for two months, owing to the general
lack of work. He had walked about seeking work for over a month and had
left his native town, Ville-Avary, in La Manche, because he could find
nothing to do and would no longer deprive his family of the bread
they needed themselves, when he was the strongest of them all. His two
sisters earned but little as charwomen. He went and inquired at the town
hall, and the mayor's secretary told him