violent grief, and mother in her
lifelong sorrow, never neglected their looking-glass and personal
appearance," said Traverse to himself, as he passed down the hall and
resolved that this little indulgence should be afforded the patients.

And except those first involuntary glances he scrupulously avoided
looking in through the gratings upon those helpless women who had no
means of secluding themselves.

But as he turned to go down the stairs his eyes went full into an
opposite cell and fell upon a vision of beauty and sorrow that
immediately riveted his gaze.

It was a small and graceful female figure, clothed in deep black,
seated by the window, with her elbow resting upon the sill and her chin
supported on her hand. Her eyes were cast down until her eyelashes lay
like inky lines upon her snow-white cheek. Her face, of classic
regularity and marble whiteness, bore a ghastly contrast to the long
eyelashes, arched eyebrows and silken ringlets black as midnight. She
might have been a statue or a picture, so motionless she sat.

Conscious of the wrong of gazing upon this solitary woman, Traverse
forced his looks away and passed on down-stairs, where he again met the
old doctor and Mademoiselle Angele at breakfast.

After breakfast Doctor St. Jean invited his young assistant to
accompany him on a round of visits to the patients, and they went
immediately up to the hall, at the end of which Traverse had slept.

"There are our incurables, but they are not violent; incurables never
are! Poor Mademoiselle! She has just been conveyed to this ward," said
the doctor, opening the door of the first cell on the right at the head
of the stairs and admitting Traverse at once into the presence of the
beautiful, black-haired, snow-faced woman, who had so much interested
him.

"This is my friend, Doctor Rocke, Mademoiselle; Doctor, this is my
friend, Mademoiselle Mont de St. Pierre!"

Traverse bowed profoundly, and the lady arose, curtsied and resumed her
seat, saying, coldly:

"I have told you, Monsieur, never to address me as Mademoiselle; you
persist in doing so, and I shall never notice the insult again."

"Ten thousand pardons, madame! But if madame will always look so young,
so beautiful, can I ever remember that she is a widow?"

The classic lip of the woman curled in scorn, and she disdained a
reply.

"I take an appeal to Monsieur Le Docteur--is not madame young and
beautiful?" asked the Frenchman, turning to Trav