ny for the sake of
economy, so as to be able to pay their debts. Arnoux, now almost a
chronic invalid, seemed to have become quite an old man. Her daughter
had been married and was living at Bordeaux, and her son was in garrison
at Mostaganem.

Then she raised her head to look at him again:

"But I see you once more! I am happy!"

He did not fail to let her know that, as soon as he heard of their
misfortune, he had hastened to their house.

"I was fully aware of it!"

"How?"

She had seen him in the street outside the house, and had hidden
herself.

"Why did you do that?"

Then, in a trembling voice, and with long pauses between her words:

"I was afraid! Yes--afraid of you and of myself!"

This disclosure gave him, as it were, a shock of voluptuous joy. His
heart began to throb wildly. She went on:

"Excuse me for not having come sooner." And, pointing towards the little
pocket-book covered with golden palm-branches:

"I embroidered it on your account expressly. It contains the amount for
which the Belleville property was given as security."

Frederick thanked her for letting him have the money, while chiding her
at the same time for having given herself any trouble about it.

"No! 'tis not for this I came! I was determined to pay you this
visit--then I would go back there again."

And she spoke about the place where they had taken up their abode.

It was a low-built house of only one story; and there was a garden
attached to it full of huge box-trees, and a double avenue of
chestnut-trees, reaching up to the top of the hill, from which there was
a view of the sea.

"I go there and sit down on a bench, which I have called 'Frederick's
bench.'"

Then she proceeded to fix her gaze on the furniture, the objects of
virtu, the pictures, with eager intentness, so that she might be able to
carry away the impressions of them in her memory. The Marechale's
portrait was half-hidden behind a curtain. But the gilding and the white
spaces of the picture, which showed their outlines through the midst of
the surrounding darkness, attracted her attention.

"It seems to me I knew that woman?"

"Impossible!" said Frederick. "It is an old Italian painting."

She confessed that she would like to take a walk through the streets on
his arm.

They went out.

The light from the shop-windows fell, every now and then, on her pale
profile; then once more she was wrapped in shadow, and in the midst of
the carriages