e doctor ceased, though he was still smiling, and the young woman, who
was in a very nervous state, said: "Why have you told me that terrible
story?"

He gave her a gallant bow, and replied:

"So that I may offer you my services, if necessary."

THE ASSIGNATION

Although she had her bonnet and jacket on, with a black veil over her
face, and another in her pocket, which she would put on over the +other
as soon as she had got into the cab, she was beating +the top of her
little boot with the point of her parasol, and remained sitting in her
room, without being able to make up her mind to keep this appointment.

And yet, how many times within the last two years had she dressed
herself thus, when she knew that her husband would be on the Stock
Exchange, in order to go to the bachelor chambers of her lover, the
handsome Viscount de Martelet.

The clock behind her was ticking loudly, a book which she had half read
through was lying open on a little rosewood writing-table between the
windows, and a strong, sweet smell of violets from two bunches which
were in a couple of Dresden china vases, mingled with a vague smell of
verbena which came through the half-open door of her dressing-room.

The clock struck three, she rose up from her chair, she turned round to
look at herself in the glass and smiled. "He is already waiting for me,
and will be getting tired."

Then she left the room, told her footman that she would be back in an
hour, at the latest--which was a lie; went downstairs and ventured into
the street on foot.

It was towards the end of May, that delightful time of the year, when
the spring seems to be besieging Paris, and to conquer it over its
roofs, invading the houses through their walls, and making it look gay,
shedding brightness over its stone facades, the asphalt of its
pavements, the stones on the roads, bathing it and intoxicating it with
sap, like a forest putting on its spring verdure.

Madame Haggan went a few steps to the right, intending, as usual, to go
along the Parade Provence, where she would hail a cab; but the soft air,
that feeling of summer which penetrates our breast on some days, now
took possession of her so suddenly that she changed her mind, and went
down the Rue de la Chausee d'Antin, without knowing why, but vaguely
attracted by a desire to see the trees in the _Square de la Trinite_.

"He may just wait ten minutes longer for me," she said to herself. And
that idea plea