f his uncles, while the rest watch us.

Joseph Boneas says "my dear friend" to me, and that affects me deeply.
Monsieur Pocard says, "If I had been advised in time I would have said
a few words. It is regrettable----"

Others follow; then nothing more is to be seen in the rain, the wind
and the gloom but backs.

"It's finished. Let's go."

Marie lifts to me her sorrow-laved face. She is sweet; she is
affectionate; she is unhappy; but she does not love me.

We go away in disorder, along by the trees whose skeletons the winter
has blackened.

When we arrive in our quarter, twilight has invaded the streets. We
hear gusts of talk about the Pocard scheme. Ah, how fiercely people
live and seek success!

Little Antoinette, cautiously feeling her way by a big wall, hears us
pass. She stops and would look if she could. We espy her figure in
that twilight of which she is beginning to make a part, though fine and
faint as a pistil.

"Poor little angel!" says a woman, as she goes by.

Marie and her father are the only ones left near me when we pass
Rampaille's tavern. Some men who were at the funeral are sitting at
tables there, black-clad.

We reach my home; Marie offers me her hand, and we hesitate. "Come
in."

She enters. We look at the dead room; the floor is wet, and the wind
blows through as if we were out of doors. Both of us are crying, and
she says, "I will come to-morrow and tidy up. Till then----"

We take each other's hand in confused hesitation.

* * * * * *

A little later there is a scraping at the door, then a timid knock, and
a long figure appears.

It is Veron who presents himself with an awkward air. His tall and
badly jointed body swings like a hanging signboard. He is an original
and sentimental soul, but no one has ever troubled to find out what he
is. He begins, "My young friend--hum, hum--" (he repeats this formless
sound every two or three words, like a sort of clock with a sonorous
tick)--"One may be wanting money, you know, for something--hum, hum;
you need money, perhaps--hum, hum; all this expense--and I'd said to
myself 'I'll take him some----'"

He scrutinizes me as he repeats, "Hum, hum." I shake his hand with
tears in my eyes. I do not need money, but I know I shall never forget
that action; so good, so supernatural.

And when he has swung himself out, abashed by my refusal, embarrassed
by the unusual size of his legs and his