ight act will be appreciated by them as it merits--but you will excuse
me from going with you, do you see? It would be too painful for me."

"Yes, I understand, my poor Amedee. As it pleases you. Now then, courage,
you will be cured of it. Everything is alleviated in time," replied
Maurice, who supposed everybody to have his fickle nature. "I shall
always remember the service that you have rendered me, for I blush now as
I think of it. Yes, I was going to do a villainous act. Amedee, embrace
me."

They threw their arms about each other's neck, and the carriage stopped.
Once on the sidewalk, Amedee noticed his friend's wry face as he saw the
home of the Gerards, a miserable, commonplace lodging-house, whose
crackled plastered front made one think of the wrinkles on a poor man's
face. On the right and on the left of the entrance-door were two shops,
one a butcher's, the other a fruiterer's, exhaling their fetid odors. But
Amedee paid no attention to the delicate Maurice's repugnance, saying:

"Do you see that little garden at the end of the walk? It is there. Au
revoir."

They separated with a last grasp of the hand. The poet saw Maurice enter
the dark alley, cross the narrow court and push the gate open into the
garden, and then disappear among the mass of verdure. How many times
Amedee had passed through there, moved at the thought that he was going
to see Maria; and Maurice crossed this threshold for the first time in
his life to take her away. He wanted her! He had himself given his
beloved to another! He had begged, almost forced his rival, so to speak,
to rob him of his dearest hope! What sorrow!

Amedee gave his address to the driver and entered the carriage again. A
cold autumn rain had commenced to fall, and he was obliged to close the
windows. As he was jolted harshly through the streets of Paris at a trot,
the young poet, all of a shiver, saw carriages streaming with water,
bespattered pedestrians under their umbrellas, a heavy gloom fall from
the leaden sky; and Amedee, stupefied with grief, felt a strange
sensation of emptiness, as if somebody had taken away his heart.

When he entered his room, the sight of his furniture, his engravings, his
books on their shelves, and his table covered with its papers distressed
him. His long evenings of study near this lamp, the long hours of thought
over some difficult work, the austere and cheerless year that he had
lived there, all had been dedicated to Maria. It w