re me that
morning, so the servant could not have carried away anything that had
been used the night before. I searched everywhere for a second cup but
could find none.

"Did Smith stay late?" I asked of Brigitte.

"He left about midnight."

"Did you retire alone or did you call some one to assist you?"

"I retired alone; every one in the house was asleep."

I continued my search and my hands trembled. In what burlesque comedy is
there a jealous lover so stupid as to inquire what has become of a cup?
Why seek to discover whether Smith and Madame Pierson had drunk from the
same cup? What a brilliant idea that!

Nevertheless I found the cup and I burst into laughter, and threw it on
the floor with such violence that it broke into a thousand pieces. I
ground the pieces under my feet.

Brigitte looked at me without saying a word. During the two succeeding
days she treated me with a coldness that had something of contempt in it,
and I saw that she treated Smith with more deference and kindness than
usual. She called him Henri and smiled on him sweetly.

"I feel that the air would do me good," she said after dinner; "shall we
go to the opera, Octave? I would enjoy walking that far."

"No, I will stay here; go without me." She took Smith's arm and went out.
I remained alone all evening; I had paper before me, and was trying to
collect my thoughts in order to write, but in vain.

As a lonely lover draws from his bosom a letter from his mistress, and
loses himself in delightful revery, thus I shut myself up in solitude and
yielded to the sweet allurement of doubt. Before me were the two empty
seats which Brigitte and Smith had just occupied; I scrutinized them
anxiously as if they could tell me something. I revolved in my mind all
the things I had heard and seen; from time to time I went to the door and
cast my eyes over our trunks which had been piled against the wall for a
month; I opened them and examined the contents so carefully packed away
by those delicate little hands; I listened to the sound of passing
carriages; the slightest noise made me tremble. I spread out on the table
our map of Europe, and there, in the very presence of all my hopes, in
that room where I had conceived and had so nearly realized them, I
abandoned myself to the most frightful presentiments.

But, strange as it may seem, I felt neither anger nor jealousy, but a
terrible sense of sorrow and foreboding. I did not suspect, and yet I
doubt