I can assure
you that a woman does not think of all those little subtle details, when
she has made up her mind to go astray. I even feel certain that no woman
is ripe for true love until she has passed through all the
promiscuousness and all the loathsomeness of married life, which,
according to an illustrious man, is nothing but an exchange of
ill-tempered words by day, and disagreeable odors at night. Nothing is
more true, for no woman can love passionately until after she has
married.

"As for dissimulation, all women have plenty of it on hand on such
occasions, and the simplest of them are wonderful, and extricate
themselves from the greatest dilemmas in an extraordinary way."

The young woman, however, seemed incredulous. ... "No, doctor," she
said, "one never thinks until after it has happened, of what one ought
to have done in a dangerous affair, and women are certainly more liable
than men to lose their heads on such occasions." The doctor raised his
hands. "After it has happened, you say! Now, I will tell you something
that happened to one of my female patients, whom I always considered as
an immaculate woman.

"It happened in a provincial town, and one night when I was sleeping
profoundly, in that deep, first sleep from which it is so difficult to
arouse us, it seemed to me, in my dreams, as if the bells in the town
were sounding a fire alarm, and I woke up with a start. It was my own
bell, which was ringing wildly, and as my footman did not seem to be
answering the door, I, in turn, pulled the bell at the head of my bed,
and soon I heard banging, and steps in the silent house, and then Jean
came into my room, and handed me a letter which said: 'Madame Lelievre
begs Doctor Simeon to come to her immediately.'

"I thought for a few moments, and then I said to myself: 'A nervous
attack, vapors, nonsense; I am too tired.' And so I replied: 'As Doctor
Simeon is not at all well, he must beg Madame Lelievre to be kind enough
to call in his colleague, Monsieur Bonnet.' I put the note into an
envelope, and went to sleep again, but about half an hour later the
street bell rang again, and Jean came to me and said: 'There is somebody
downstairs; I do not quite know whether it is a man or a woman, as the
individual is so wrapped up, who wishes to speak to you immediately. He
says it is a matter of life and death for two people. Whereupon, I sat
up in bed and told him to show the person in.

"A kind of black phantom a