ught some glimpse through the golden veil which covered it, and
whose reality the poor girl sought to escape in dissipation, drink,
and wakefulness, impressed me so deeply that I could not utter a single
word.

"Come," continued Marguerite, "we are talking mere childishness. Give me
your arm and let us go back to the dining-room. They won't know what we
mean by our absence."

"Go in, if you like, but allow me to stay here."

"Why?"

"Because your mirth hurts me."

"Well, I will be sad."

"Marguerite, let me say to you something which you have no doubt often
heard, so often that the habit of hearing it has made you believe it no
longer, but which is none the less real, and which I will never repeat."

"And that is...?" she said, with the smile of a young mother listening
to some foolish notion of her child.

"It is this, that ever since I have seen you, I know not why, you have
taken a place in my life; that, if I drive the thought of you out of my
mind, it always comes back; that when I met you to-day, after not having
seen you for two years, you made a deeper impression on my heart and
mind than ever; that, now that you have let me come to see you, now that
I know you, now that I know all that is strange in you, you have become
a necessity of my life, and you will drive me mad, not only if you will
not love me, but if you will not let me love you."

"But, foolish creature that you are, I shall say to you, like Mme. D.,
'You must be very rich, then!' Why, you don't know that I spend six or
seven thousand francs a month, and that I could not live without it; you
don't know, my poor friend, that I should ruin you in no time, and that
your family would cast you off if you were to live with a woman like me.
Let us be friends, good friends, but no more. Come and see me, we will
laugh and talk, but don't exaggerate what I am worth, for I am worth
very little. You have a good heart, you want some one to love you, you
are too young and too sensitive to live in a world like mine. Take a
married woman. You see, I speak to you frankly, like a friend."

"But what the devil are you doing there?" cried Prudence, who had come
in without our bearing her, and who now stood just inside the door, with
her hair half coming down and her dress undone. I recognised the hand of
Gaston.

"We are talking sense," said Marguerite; "leave us alone; we will be
back soon."

"Good, good! Talk, my children," said Prudence, going out and