No,
I would not go to the sea-shore, or to any other shore; a stranded
vessel, I could not struggle from the place of shipwreck.

Monsieur grew vexed and anxious, when I stubbornly shook my head. And
when week after week I still refused, he grew strangely uneasy. I had
better go; if I would not go alone, he would go with me, shut up the
shop, and take a holiday.

I considered the matter that day. The project was a wild one; at this
busiest season of the year, it would be an injury to our business.
And what might the neighbors say? It might lead them to unpleasant
suspicions. We were not popular among them. No, it would not do.

I explained this to Monsieur very calmly at the supper-table. His
face was pale and quiet as usual. He did not interrupt me. When I
concluded, he rose as if he would go out, but turning back suddenly
and striking the table with his clenched fist,--

"God!" he exclaimed. "Woman would you see me die like a dog? The
neighbors! for all I know, they have got me at their finger-ends
now,--the vile rabble! That old hag, Madame Justine, at the
ribbon-shop below,--some demon possessed her to look out that night
when SHE came crawling home. She noted her well with her greedy eyes;
some one _so_ like my dear first wife, she told me. There is mischief
and death in her eyes. She knows or guesses too much."

"What can she guess?" I asked; "she has only lately come into the
neighborhood."

In answer to this, Monsieur informed me that she professed to
have been an old friend of his wife's, who, in times gone by, half
bewildered with her troubles, had probably dropped many unguarded
words in this woman's presence. Madame C---- had died (to her old
home) while this woman was away on a visit. "Ah!" she said, "she had
her misgivings many a time. Did the same doctor attend Madame C----
who prescribed for little Jacques? _He_ ought to be hung, then. Ah,
well, if all men had their deserts, she knew many things that would
hang some folks who looted all fair and square, and held their guilty
heads higher than their neighbors."

"Well?" I said.

"Well!--you women are so virtuous, you have no mercy, Madame. Go,
hang--go, drown the wretch who comes under the malediction of the
ladies! Oh, there is nothing too hard for him! And this one owed me a
grudge lately about a mistake,--a little mistake I made in an account
with her, and would not alter because I thought it all right."

The preparations were going on si