ts took another course; I looked at him attentively, and it seemed
to me that he was also examining me with curiosity.

We were both twenty-one years of age, but what a difference between us!
He, accustomed to an existence regulated by the graduated tick of the
clock; never having seen anything of life, except that part of it which
lies between an obscure room on the fourth floor and a dingy government
office; sending his mother all his savings, that farthing of human joy
which the hand of toil clasps so greedily; having no thought except for
the happiness of others, and that since his childhood, since he had been
a babe in arms! And I, during that precious time, so swift, so
inexorable, during the time that with him had been a round of toil, what
had I done? Was I a man? Which of us had lived?

What I have said in a page can be comprehended in a moment. He spoke to
me of our journey and the countries we were going to visit.

"When do you go?" he asked.

"I do not know; Madame Pierson is indisposed, and has been confined to
her bed for three days."

"For three days!" he repeated, in surprise.

"Yes; why are you astonished?"

He arose and threw himself on me, his arms extended, his eyes fixed. He
was trembling violently.

"Are you ill?" I asked, taking him by the hand. He pressed his hand to
his head and burst into tears. When he had recovered sufficiently to
speak, he said:

"Pardon me; be good enough to leave me. I fear I am not well; when I have
sufficiently recovered I will return your visit."

CHAPTER III

THE QUESTION OF SMITH

Brigitte was better. She had told me that she desired to go away as soon
as she was well enough to travel. But I insisted that she ought to rest
at least fifteen days before undertaking a long journey.

Whenever I attempted to persuade her to speak frankly, she assured me
that the letter was the only cause of her melancholy, and begged me to
say nothing more about it. Then I tried in vain to guess what was passing
in her heart. We went to the theatre every night in order to avoid
embarrassing interviews. There we sometimes pressed each other's hands at
some fine bit of acting or beautiful strain of music, or exchanged,
perhaps, a friendly glance, but going and returning we were mute,
absorbed in our thoughts.

Smith came almost every day. Although his presence in the house had been
the cause of all my sorrow, and although my visit to him had left
singular suspicions i