n's heart, and he reached his
home joyous and happy. He gave a vigorous pull to the bell, climbed
quickly up the long flights of stairs and opened the door to their
apartment. But what was this? His father must have come home very late,
for a stream of light shines under the door of his sleeping-room.

"Poor man!" thought Amedee, recalling the scene of the morning. "He may
be ill. Let us see."

He had hardly opened the door, when he drew back uttering a shriek
of horror and distress. By the light of a candle that burned upon the
mantel, Amedee had caught sight of his father extended upon the floor,
his shirt disordered and covered with blood, holding in his clenched
right hand the razor with which he had cut his throat.

Yes! the union of two loving hearts had at last taken place. Their love
was happiness on earth; but if one of the two dies the other can never
be consoled while life lasts.

M. Violette never was consoled.

CHAPTER IX. THORNS OF JEALOUSY

Now Amedee had no family. The day after his father's death he had a
violent rupture with M. Isidore Gaufre. Under the pretext that a suicide
horrified him, he allowed his niece's husband to be carried to the
cemetery in a sixth-class hearse, and did not honor with his presence
the funeral, which was even prohibited from using the parish road. But
the saintly man was not deterred from swallowing for his dinner that
same day, while thundering against the progress of materialism, tripe
cooked after the Caen fashion, one of Berenice's weekly works of art.

Amedee had now no family, and his friends were dispersed. As a reward
for passing his examinations in law, Madame Roger took her son with her
on a trip to Italy, and they had just left France together.

As to the poor Gerards, just one month after M. Violette's death, the
old engraver died suddenly, of apoplexy, at his work; and on that day
there were not fifty francs in the house. Around the open grave where
they lowered the obscure and honest artist, there was only a group of
three women, in black, who were weeping, and Amedee in mourning for his
father, with a dozen of Gerard's old comrades, whose romantic heads had
become gray. The family was obliged to sell at once, in order to get
a little money, what remained of proof-sheets in the boxes, some small
paintings, old presents from artist friends who had become celebrated,
and the last of the ruined knickknacks--indeed, all that constituted the
charm of