in Risler's
eyes calumny pure and simple. Ah, master judge, we have you now!

"I am born again--I am born again!" she cried to Madame Dobson. She ran
out into the garden, gathered great bouquets for her salon, threw the
windows wide open to the sunlight, gave orders to the cook, the coachman,
the gardener. The house must be made to look beautiful, for Georges was
coming back, and for a beginning she organized a grand dinner-party for
the end of the week.

The next evening Sidonie, Risler, and Madame Dobson were together in the
salon. While honest Risler turned the leaves of an old handbook of
mechanics, Sidonie sang to Madame Dobson's accompaniment. Suddenly she
stopped in the middle of her aria and burst into a peal of laughter. The
clock had just struck ten.

Risler looked up quickly.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing-an idea that came into my head," replied Sidonie, winking of
Madame Dobson and pointing at the clock.

It was the hour appointed for the meeting, and she was thinking of her
lover's torture as he waited for her to come.

Since the return of the messenger bringing from Sidonie the "yes" he had
so feverishly awaited, a great calm had come over his troubled mind, like
the sudden removal of a heavy burden. No more uncertainty, no more
clashing between passion and duty.

Not once did it occur to him that on the other side of the landing some
one was weeping and sighing because of him. Not once did he think of his
brother's despair, of the ghastly drama they were to leave behind them.
He saw a sweet little pale face resting beside his in the railway train,
a blooming lip within reach of his lip, and two fathomless eyes looking
at him by the soft light of the lamp, to the soothing accompaniment of
the wheels and the steam.

Two hours before the opening of the gate for the designated train, Frantz
was already at the Lyon station, that gloomy station which, in the
distant quarter of Paris in which it is situated, seems like a first
halting-place in the provinces. He sat down in the darkest corner and
remained there without stirring, as if dazed.

Instinctively, although the appointed hour was still distant, he looked
among the people who were hurrying along, calling to one another, to see
if he could not discern that graceful figure suddenly emerging from the
crowd and thrusting it aside at every step with the radiance of her
beauty.

After many departures and arrivals and shrill whistles, the