r old friend's
arm, and was looking straight in front of her, with a fixed and haunted
gaze, and at last she said:

"And so you have not seen him again, either?"

"No, never."

"Is it possible?"

"My dear friend, do not let us begin that discussion again. I have a
wife and children and you have a husband, so we both of us have much to
fear from other people's opinion."

She did not reply; she was thinking of her long past youth and of many
sad things that had occurred. How well she recalled all the details of
their early friendship, his smiles, the way he used to linger, in order
to watch her until she was indoors. What happy days they were, the only
really delicious days she had ever enjoyed, and how quickly they were
over!

And then--her discovery--of the penalty she paid! What anguish!

Of that journey to the South, that long journey, her sufferings, her
constant terror, that secluded life in the small, solitary house on the
shores of the Mediterranean, at the bottom of a garden, which she did
not venture to leave. How well she remembered those long days which she
spent lying under an orange tree, looking up at the round, red fruit,
amid the green leaves. How she used to long to go out, as far as the
sea, whose fresh breezes came to her over the wall, and whose small
waves she could hear lapping on the beach. She dreamed of its immense
blue expanse sparkling under the sun, with the white sails of the small
vessels, and a mountain on the horizon. But she did not dare to go
outside the gate. Suppose anybody had recognized her!

And those days of waiting, those last days of misery and expectation!
The impending suffering, and then that terrible night! What misery she
had endured, and what a night it was! How she had groaned and screamed!
She could still see the pale face of her lover, who kissed her hand
every moment, and the clean-shaven face of the doctor and the nurse's
white cap.

And what she felt when she heard the child's feeble cries, that wail,
that first effort of a human's voice!

And the next day! the next day! the only day of her life on which she
had seen and kissed her son; for, from that time, she had never even
caught a glimpse of him.

And what a long, void existence hers had been since then, with the
thought of that child always, always floating before her. She had never
seen her son, that little creature that had been part of herself, even
once since then; they had taken him from her,