r about him. At last the servant came in with a letter and
lighted a candle. The letter was a telegram, which M. de Mauves, when
he had read it, burnt at the candle. After five minutes' meditation
he wrote a message on the back of a visiting-card and gave it to the
servant to carry to the office. The man knew quite as much as his master
suspected about the lady to whom the telegram was addressed; but its
contents puzzled him; they consisted of the single word "Impossible." As
the evening passed without her brother's reappearing in the drawing-room
Madame Clairin came to him where he sat by his solitary candle. He
took no notice of her presence for some time, but this affected her
as unexpected indulgence. At last, however, he spoke with a particular
harshness. "Ce jeune mufle has gone home at an hour's notice. What the
devil does it mean?"

Madame Clairin now felt thankful for her umbrella. "It means that I've a
sister-in-law whom I've not the honour to understand."

He said nothing more and silently allowed her, after a little, to
depart. It had been her duty to provide him with an explanation, and he
was disgusted with her blankness; but she was--if there was no more to
come--getting off easily. When she had gone he went into the garden and
walked up and down with his cigar. He saw his wife seated alone on the
terrace, but remained below, wandering, turning, pausing, lingering.
He remained a long time. It grew late and Madame de Mauves disappeared.
Toward midnight he dropped upon a bench, tired, with a long vague
exhalation of unrest. It was sinking into his spirit that he too didn't
understand Madame Clairin's sister-in-law.

Longmore was obliged to wait a week in London for a ship. It was very
hot, and he went out one day to Richmond. In the garden of the hotel at
which he dined he met his friend Mrs. Draper, who was staying there.
She made eager enquiry about Madame de Mauves; but Longmore at first,
as they sat looking out at the famous view of the Thames, parried her
questions and confined himself to other topics. At last she said she was
afraid he had something to conceal; whereupon, after a pause, he asked
her if she remembered recommending him, in the letter she had addressed
him at Saint-Germain, to draw the sadness from her friend's smile. "The
last I saw of her was her smile," he said--"when I bade her good-bye."

"I remember urging you to 'console' her," Mrs. Draper returned, "and I
wondered afterwards w