MADEMOISELLE PERLE GUY DE MAUPASSANT

I

What a strange notion indeed of mine to choose Mademoiselle Perle for queen this evening.

Every year I go to my old friend Chantal’s for Twelfth-night. My father, whose most intimate friend he was, used to take me there when a child. I have kept up the custom, and no doubt will continue to keep it up as long as I live, and as long as there is a Chantal in this world.

The Chantals, I ought to say, lead a singular existence: they live at Paris as if they were at Grasse, Yvetot, or Pont-à-Mousson.

They have a house with a small garden near the Observatory. There they live their own life as if they were in the country. Of Paris, the real Paris, they have no knowledge and no suspicion: they are so far, far away from it! Sometimes, however, they take a journey, a long journey, there. Madame Chantal goes to lay in supplies, as they say in the family. This is how they lay in supplies.

Mademoiselle Perle, who keeps the keys of the pantry-presses (for the linen-presses are administered by the mistress of the house herself), Mademoiselle Perle notices that the sugar is running down, that the preserves are exhausted, that there is not much more left at the bottom of the coffee-sack.

Thus warned against famine, Madame Chantal inspects the remains, and takes notes in a note-book. Then, when she has written a great many figures, she plunges first into long calculations, then into long discussions with Mademoiselle Perle. The upshot of it is, however, that they come to an agreement and settle upon the quantities of each article that they will provide for a quarter, sugar, rice, prunes, coffee, preserves, tins of green peas, of haricot beans, of lobster, salt and smoked fish, and so on, and so on.

This done, they fix the day for their shopping, and set out in a cab, a cab with a rail, to a biggish grocer, whose shop is across the bridges, in the new districts.

Madame Chantal and Mademoiselle Perle make this expedition in company, mysteriously, and come home at dinner-time quite exhausted, though still excited, and shaken up in the cab, the top of which is covered with parcels and bags, like a removal van.

For the Chantals all Paris on the other side of the Seine is the new districts, districts inhabited by a strange population, noisy, not too honest, that passes its days in dissipation, its nights in feasting, and makes ducks and drakes of its money. Nevertheless the young ladies are now and again taken to the theatre, the Opéra-Comique or the Théâtre Français, when the piece is approved by the newspaper that M. Chantal reads.

The young ladies are now nineteen and seventeen years old; they are two pretty girls, tall and fresh, very well brought up, too well brought up, so well brought up that they pass unnoticed like two pretty dolls. It would never enter my head to pay attentions or to pay court to Mesdemoiselles Chantal: one scarcely dares to speak of them, they seem so immaculate, and as for bowing to them, one almost fears he is taking a liberty.

As for their father, he is a charming man, very well informed, very frank, very cordial, but whose one desire is repose and peace and quietness, and who is largely responsible for thus mummifying his family in order to live as he desires in stagnant immobility. He reads a great deal, is fond of conversation, is easily touched. The absence of all contact, elbowing and collisions has made him very sensitive and thin-skinned. The least thing excites him, agitates him, and hurts him.

Yet the Chantals do have some acquaintances, but restricted acquaintances, carefully selected in their neighbourhood. They also exchange two or three annual visits with some relatives who live at a distance.

As for me, I dine with them on the 15th of August and on Twelfth-night. The latter is part of my duty, like a Catholic’s Easter communion.

On the 15th of August some friends are invited, but on Twelfth-night I am the only guest.

II

So this year, as in other years, I have been dining at the Chantals’ to celebrate Epiphany.

According to custom I embraced M. Chantal, Madame Chantal and Mademoiselle Perle, and made a profound bow to Mesdemoiselles Louise and Pauline. They asked me a thousand questions, about town gossip, about politics, about popular opinion on the events in Tonkin, and about our representatives. Madame Chantal, a stout lady, whose ideas always give me the impression that they are squared like so many hewn stones, had a habit of enouncing the phrase, “That will bear evil fruit some day,” as the conclusion of every political discussion. Why have I always imagined that Madame Chantal’s ideas are square? I do not know, the fact remains that everything she says assumes this shape in my mind; a square, a big square with four equal angles. There are other persons whose ideas always seem to be round and rolling like circles. No sooner have they commenced a phrase on some subject, than it goes rolling and issues in a dozen, a score, fifty round ideas, big and little, which I see running one after the other to the farthest horizon. Other persons, again, have pointed ideas.... But that is neither here nor there.

We sat down to table as usual, and the dinner passed without anything being said worth remembering.

At dessert, the Twelfth-cake was brought in. Now, every year M. Chantal was king. Whether that was a repeated coincidence or a family arrangement, I do not know, but he used infallibly to find the bean in his share of the cake, and used to proclaim Madame Chantal queen. So I was astounded to feel in a mouthful of cake something very hard, which almost broke a tooth for me. I carefully removed the thing from my mouth and saw a little china doll no bigger than a bean. In my surprise, I exclaimed, “Ah!” They looked at me, and Chantal clapped his hands and shouted, “Gaston’s got it! Gaston’s got it! Long live the king! Long live the king!”

Everybody repeated in chorus, “Long live the king!” and I blushed up to my ears, as one will blush, for no reason whatever, in rather foolish situations. I sat looking down at the cloth, with the scrap of china in my finger and thumb, forcing a laugh, and at a loss what to say or do, when Chantal resumed, “Now, you must choose a queen.”

At that I was overwhelmed. In a second, a thousand thoughts, a thousand suppositions flashed through my mind. Did they mean me to single out one of the Chantal girls? Was this a plan for making me say which one I preferred? Was it a gentle, slight, insensible impulse from the parents towards a possible marriage? The notion of marriage is constantly lurking in all those houses with grown-up daughters, and takes all sorts of forms, all sorts of disguises, all sorts of measures. I felt horribly afraid of compromising myself, and also excessively timid in face of the obstinately correct and composed attitude of Mesdemoiselles Louise and Pauline. To elect one of them to the detriment of the other was, to my mind, as difficult as to choose between two drops of water; and, besides, I was dreadfully scared by the fear of risking myself in an affair where I should be led on to marriage against my will by procedures so discreet, so imperceptible, and so calm as this trumpery royalty.

But all at once I had an inspiration, and I offered the symbolical doll to Mademoiselle Perle. They were all surprised at first; then they undoubtedly appreciated my delicacy and my discretion, for they applauded furiously. “Long live the queen, long live the queen!” they shouted.

As for her, poor old maid, she had lost countenance entirely: she trembled, quite scared, and stammered, “Oh no.... Oh no.... Oh no ... not me.... I pray you ... not me.... I pray you!”

At that I considered Mademoiselle Perle for the first time in my life, and began to ask myself what she was.

I was accustomed to seeing her in that house, as one sees the old tapestry arm-chairs on which one has sat from childhood, without ever noticing them. Some day, no one knows why, because a sunbeam falls on the chair, one says, “Why, this is very interesting.” And one discovers that the wood has been wrought by an artist, and that the covering is remarkable. I had never taken any notice of Mademoiselle Perle.

She was a member of the Chantal household, and nothing more. But why, on what footing?—She was a tall, thin person, who kept herself in the background, but was not insignificant. They treated her friendly, better than a housekeeper, not so well as a relative. Now, however, on a sudden I grasped some fine distinctions which I had not troubled about before! Madame Chantal said “Perle,” the girls, “Mademoiselle Perle,” and Chantal always called her “Mademoiselle,” though perhaps more respectfully than they did.

I began to consider her.—What was her age? Forty? Yes, forty.—She was not an old maid, she was growing old. This observation suddenly occurred to me. She did her hair, dressed, adorned herself in a ridiculous fashion, yet for all that she was not ridiculous, she had such a simple, natural grace about her, a veiled grace, studiously concealed. What a strange creature, to be sure! Why had I never observed her better? She did her hair in a grotesque fashion, in little, droll, old-fashioned ringlets. Yet under this antiquated Virgin’s hairdressing appeared a broad, calm forehead, scored by two deep wrinkles, two wrinkles of long-continued griefs, then two blue eyes, large and gentle, so timid, so startled, so humble, two beautiful eyes that had remained so innocent; so full of maiden astonishment, of youthful sensations, and also of disappointments that had entered into them and softened without troubling them.

Her whole face was intelligent and discreet, one of those faces which have toned down without being worn out or faded by the fatigues or the great emotions of life.

What a pretty mouth! and what pretty teeth! Yet one would have said that she dared not smile!

And suddenly I compared her with Madame Chantal! Why, to be sure! Mademoiselle Perle was handsomer, a hundred times handsomer, more intelligent, more noble, more dignified.

I was stupefied with the result of my observations. Champagne was poured out. I held my glass towards the queen, and proposed her health in a well-turned compliment. She would have liked, I could see, to hide her face in her napkin. Then, as she dipped her lips in the clear wine, every one cried, “The queen drinks, the queen drinks!” At that she blushed all over and choked; but I could see that she was greatly beloved in that house.

III

As soon as dinner was over, Chantal took me by the arm. It was the hour for his cigar, a sacred hour. When he was alone, he went out to smoke it in the street; when he had any one to dinner, they went up to the billiard-room, and he smoked as he played. This evening they had even lighted a fire in the billiard-room in honour of Twelfth-night, and my old friend took his cue, a very thin cue, which he chalked with great care, then he said:

“You lead off, my boy!”

For he always called me “my boy,” in spite of my five-and-twenty years; but then he had seen me when I was a baby.

So I commenced the game; I made some cannons, and missed others; but, as Mademoiselle Perle was always running through my mind, I suddenly asked:

“I say, Monsieur Chantal, is Mademoiselle Perle any relation of yours?”

He stopped playing in great surprise, and looked at me.

“What, don’t you know? Have you never heard Mademoiselle Perle’s story?”

“No.”

“Did your father never tell you?”

“No.”

“Well, well, that is strange! That is indeed strange! Why, it is quite a romance!”

He was silent, then began again:

“If you only knew how singular it is that you should ask me that question to-day, on Twelfth-night!”

“Why?”

“Ah! Why? Listen. It was forty-one years ago, forty-one years this very day, Epiphany. We were then living at Roüy-le-Tors, on the ramparts. But I must first describe the house, in order that you may understand properly. Roüy is built on a slope, or rather on a knoll which commands a wide extent of that country. We had a house there with a fine hanging garden, supported in the air by the old city walls. So the house was in the town, in the street, while the garden overlooked the plain. There was also a postern-gate from this garden to the country, at the foot of a secret staircase which went down in the thickness of the walls, like those read of in romances. A road passed by this gate, which was furnished with a big bell, for the peasants used to bring their provisions that way to escape the long round about.

“You can see the places, can’t you? Well, that year, on Twelfth-day, it had been snowing for a week. It looked like the end of the world. It chilled our very soul when we went to the ramparts to look at the plain, the great white landscape, all white, icy, shining like varnish. It looked as if the good Lord had wrapped up the Earth to send it to the lumber-room of old worlds. I can assure you that it was very dreary.

“The whole family was together at that moment, and we were numerous, very numerous, my father, my mother, my uncle and aunt, my two brothers, and my four cousins; pretty girls they were. I am married to the youngest. Of all that company there are only three alive now, my wife, myself, and my sister-in-law at Marseilles. Bless me, how a family slips away! It makes me tremble when I think of it. I was fifteen then; now I am fifty-six.

“Well, we were going to keep Twelfth-night, and we were very merry, very merry! All were in the drawing-room waiting dinner, when my elder brother, Jacques, suddenly said, ‛There’s a dog been howling in the plain for the last ten minutes. It must be some poor beast that is lost.’

“We had not finished speaking when the garden-bell rang. It had a deep church-bell tone, which made one think of the dead. We all shivered at the sound. My father called the servant and told him to go and look. There was perfect silence as we waited; we were thinking of the snow that covered all the earth. When the man returned, he declared that he had seen nothing. The dog was still howling incessantly, and the sound came from exactly the same place.

“We sat down to table, but we were still a little upset, especially we young people. All went nicely until the joint, when, hark, the bell began ringing again, three times in succession, three great, long peals, which thrilled us to our finger-tips and made us catch our breath. We sat looking at each other, our forks in the air, still listening, seized with a sort of supernatural fear.

“At last my mother spoke. ‛It is extraordinary that they should have waited so long before coming back. Do not go alone, Baptiste; one of these gentlemen will go with you.’

“My uncle François rose. He was a Hercules, very proud of his strength, and afraid of nothing on earth. My father said to him, ‛Take a gun. You never know what it may be.’

“But my uncle only took a stick, and went out at once with the servant.

“We others remained behind, trembling with terror and anxiety, without eating, without speaking. My father tried to reassure us. ‛You will see,’ he said, ‛that it will be some beggar or some traveller lost in the snow. After he rang the first time, seeing that the door was not opened at once, he has tried to find his way, then, failing to do so, he has come back to our door.’

“We felt as if our uncle’s absence lasted an hour. Then he returned furious and swearing. ‛There’s nothing, as I’m alive! Some one’s playing a trick! There’s nothing but that confounded dog howling a hundred yards away from the walls. If I had had my gun, I’d have shot him to make him quiet!’

“We sat down again, but we all continued anxious. We felt that this was not the end of it, that something was going to happen, and that presently the bell would ring again.

“And it did sound, at the very moment when we were cutting the Twelfth cake. All the men got up together. My uncle François, who had drunk some champagne, declared that he was going to massacre IT, so furiously that my mother and my aunt caught hold of him to stop him. My father, in spite of being quite calm and not very fit (he dragged one leg ever after it had been broken by a fall from a horse), declared in his turn that he wanted to know what it was, and that he was going. My brothers, aged nineteen and twenty, ran to get their guns; and, as no one paid much attention to me, I possessed myself of a rook-rifle and so prepared to accompany the expedition.

“It set out at once. My father and my uncle led, with Baptiste carrying a lantern. My brothers Jacques and Paul followed, and I brought up the rear in spite of my mother’s entreaties, who remained with her sister and my cousins on the door-step.

“The snow had begun again the last hour, and the trees were laden. The pines were bending under the heavy dusky mantle, like white pyramids, or enormous sugar loaves; and through the grey curtain of fine hurrying flakes it was almost impossible to make out the smaller shrubs, all pale in the gloom. The snow was falling so quickly that nothing else could be seen ten paces off. But the lantern threw a great light before us. When we began to descend the corkscrew staircase hollowed in the thickness of the wall, I was afraid in good earnest. I felt as if some one was walking behind me; as if some one was about to catch me by the shoulders and carry me off; and I wanted to go home. But, as I should have had to go all the way back through the garden, I did not dare.

“I heard the door to the plain being opened; then my uncle began to swear afresh. ‛Hang it! he’s off again. If I could see his shadow, I’d not miss him, the—.’

“It was eerie to see the plain, or rather to feel it was there before one; for it could not be seen, all that was visible was an endless veil of snow, above, below, in front, to right, to left, everywhere.

“My uncle spoke again, ‛Wait, there is the dog howling. I’ll go and show it how I can shoot. That will always be something.’

“But my father, who was a kindly man, replied, ‛Better go and look for the poor animal that’s crying with hunger. It’s barking for help, poor wretch. It’s calling like a human being in distress. Let’s go to it.’

“And we set out through that curtain, through that dense unceasing fall, through that powder that filled the night and the air, that moved, floated, fell, and froze the flesh as it melted, froze as if it would burn, with a short sharp sting on the skin at each touch of the tiny white flakes.

“We sank to the knees in the soft chill dust, and had to step very high to walk at all. As we advanced the dog’s bark became clearer and louder. My uncle cried, ‛There it is!’ We halted to observe it, as one ought to do on encountering an unknown enemy in the dark.

“For my part I could see nothing; then I made up with the others, and I made it out. The dog was a fearful and fantastic sight; a great black dog, a sheepdog, with shaggy hair and a head like a wolf, standing on all fours at the very end of the long beam of light cast by the lantern on the snow. He did not move; he was quiet now, and was looking at us.

“My uncle said, ‛It is strange, he does not come at us, and he does not run away. I have a good mind to take a shot at him.’

“But my father said decidedly, ‛No, we must catch him.’

“Thereupon my brother Jacques said, ‛But he is not alone. There’s something beside him.’

“And there was something beside him, something grey, indistinct. We began to advance again carefully.

“When the dog saw us approaching, he squatted down on his hindquarters. He did not look savage, rather he seemed pleased that he had succeeded in attracting somebody.

“My father went straight up to him and caressed him. The dog licked his hands, and we saw that he was tied to the wheel of a little carriage, a sort of toy carriage completely enveloped in three or four woollen wraps. We took these cloths off carefully, and when Baptiste held his lantern to the door of the go-cart, which was like a kennel on wheels, we saw a little baby inside asleep.

“We were so dumbfounded that we could not utter a word. My father was the first to recover himself, and, as he was a large-hearted man, and somewhat of a visionary, he laid his hand on the top of the carriage and said, ‛Poor forsaken child, you shall be one of us!’ And he ordered my brother Jacques to wheel our find in front of us.

“And my father continued, thinking aloud:

“‘Some love-child whose poor mother has come and rung at my door this Epiphany night, thinking of the Christ-child.’

“He stopped again, and four times shouted through the night at the pitch of his voice to the four corners of the heavens, ‛We have taken it up!’ Then, putting his hand on his brother’s shoulder, he murmured, ‛If you had shot at the dog, François?...’

“My uncle gave no answer, but he made a great sign of the cross in the darkness, for he was very devout, in spite of his swaggering airs.

“The dog had been untied, and followed us.

“I can assure you our return to the house was a pretty sight indeed. First we had a lot of trouble to get the carriage up the rampart stair: but we managed at last, and wheeled it into the hall.

“How amused, and pleased, and frightened mamma was! As for my four little cousins (the youngest was six), they were like four hens around a nest. At last the baby, which was still sleeping, was taken out of its carriage. It was a girl, about six weeks old. And in its clothes we found ten thousand francs in gold, yes, ten thousand francs, which papa invested for her dowry. So she was not the child of poor parents ... but perhaps the child of a nobleman and some small citizen’s daughter ... or else ... we formed a thousand conjectures but we never learned anything ... no, not a thing ... not a thing.... Even the dog was not recognized by any one. He was strange to these parts. In any case, he or she who came three times and rang at our door must have known my parents well, to have chosen them in this way.

“So that is how Mademoiselle Perle made her entrance at six weeks’ age to the Chantal family.

“We did not call her Mademoiselle Perle until later, however. She was baptized Marie Simonne Claire; Claire was to serve as her surname.

“I can tell you it was a funny return to the dining-room with the small mite, now awake, who gazed about her at the people and the lights with her big wondering blue eyes.

“We sat down once more and the cake was cut up. I was king, and I chose Mademoiselle Perle as my queen, just as you did a little ago. She was all unconscious then of the honour that was done her.

“Well, the child was adopted and brought up as one of the family. She grew up, years passed on. She was a nice, gentle, obedient child. Every one loved her, and she would have been dreadfully spoiled, if my mother had not prevented that.

“My mother was a woman of order and hierarchy. She consented to treat little Claire as she did her own sons, but at the same time she took care that the distance between us was clearly marked, and the situation distinctly laid down.

“Therefore, as soon as the child was old enough to understand, she explained her story to her, and gently, indeed tenderly, impressed upon the little one’s mind that her relation to the Chantals was that of an adopted daughter, welcome, no doubt, but still a stranger.

“Claire grasped the situation with singular intelligence, and with surprising intuition. She learned to accept and keep the place assigned to her with such tact, grace, and delicacy that it moved my father to tears.

“My mother, too, was so touched by the passionate gratitude and the somewhat timid devotion of the darling, tender creature that she took to calling her ‛my daughter.’ Sometimes, when the little one had done something good or delicate, my mother would push her spectacles up on her brow, always a sign of emotion with her, and repeat, ‛Why, she’s a pearl, a regular pearl, the child!’ The name stuck to little Claire, who became and remained for us Mademoiselle Perle.”

IV

M. Chantal ceased speaking. He was seated on the billiard-table, dangling his feet, his left hand playing with a ball, while his right fiddled with a cloth which was used for wiping the chalk-marks off the scoring-slate, and which from its use we called the chalk-cloth. Rather red, his voice indistinct, he was speaking to himself now, lost in his recollections, going gently through the bygone things and the old events that were waking in his mind, as one strolls through the old gardens of the home where one was brought up, and where each tree, each path, each plant, the prickly hollies, the sweet-smelling laurels, the yews, whose fat red berries crush between one’s fingers, evoke at every step some little fact of our past life, one of those insignificant and delicious facts that make up the very foundation, the very warp of existence.

As for me, I stood there facing him, my back leaning against the wall, and my hands supported on my unused billiard-cue.

After a minute he resumed.

“Ah, me! How pretty she was at eighteen ... and gracious ... and perfect.... Ah! what a pretty ... pretty ... pretty and kind ... and good ... and charming girl! ... She had eyes ... blue eyes ... transparent ... clear ... the like of which I have never seen ... never!”

He lapsed into silence again. I asked, “Why has she never married?”

He replied, not to me, but to the word “married” that had been let fall:

“Why? Why? She never wished to ... never wished. Though she had thirty thousand francs dowry, and was asked several times ... she never wished to! She seemed sad in those days. That was when I married my cousin, little Charlotte, my wife, to whom I had been engaged for six years.”

I looked at M. Chantal, and it seemed to me that I saw into his soul, that I suddenly saw into one of those humble and cruel dramas of honourable hearts, upright hearts, of hearts without reproach, into one of those mute, unexplored hearts, which no one has understood, not even those who are their uncomplaining and resigned victims.

And, suddenly impelled by a daring curiosity, I blurted out:

“Should not you have married her, Monsieur Chantal?”

He trembled, looked at me, and said:

“I? Marry whom?”

“Mademoiselle Perle.”

“Why so?”

“Because you loved her better than your cousin.”

He looked at me with strange, round, startled eyes, then he stammered:

“I loved her ... I? ... how? Who told you that?...”

“Why, any one can see it ... and that’s why you were so long in marrying your cousin, who waited six years for you.”

He dropped the ball that he was holding in his left hand, seized the chalk-cloth with both hands, and, hiding his face with it, began to sob into it. He wept in a distressing, ridiculous way, as a sponge weeps when it is squeezed, from his eyes and nose and mouth all at once. And he coughed and hawked, blew his nose into the chalk-cloth, wiped his eyes, sneezed, began running again from every aperture in his face, with a throaty noise that suggested gargling.

As for me, frightened and ashamed, I wanted to make my escape and was at my wits’ end to know what to say, or to do, or try.

And suddenly Madame Chantal’s voice sounded on the stairs, “Will you soon be done with your smoke?”

I opened the door and called, “Yes, Madame, we are coming down.”

Then I rushed to her husband, and seizing him by the elbows said, “Monsieur Chantal, my good friend Chantal, listen; your wife is calling you; pull yourself together, pull yourself together at once; we must go downstairs; pull yourself together.”

He stammered, “Yes ... yes ... I’m coming ... poor girl ... I’m coming ... tell her I’ll be in a moment.”

And he began conscientiously to wipe his face with the cloth that had been wiping all the marks off the slate for two or three years. When he finished, he showed half white, half red, his brow, his nose, his cheeks, his chin all smeared with chalk, and his eyes swollen and still full of tears.

I took him by the hands and dragged him into his room, murmuring, “I beg your pardon, I do indeed, Monsieur Chantal, for having given you pain, ... but ... I did not know ... you ... you understand.”

He pressed my hand, “Yes ... yes ... there are some awkward moments....”

Then he plunged his face into the basin. When he lifted his head he still did not look presentable, but I thought of a little ruse. As he looked rather uncomfortably at himself in the glass, I said to him, “It will do if you tell them that you have some dust in your eye, and you can let them see it watering as much as you like.”

So he went downstairs rubbing his eyes with his handkerchief. They made a fuss about him; every one wanted to look for the speck of dust, which was not to be found, and they related similar cases in which the doctor had eventually to be called in.

As for me, I had rejoined Mademoiselle Perle, and I was watching her, tormented by a burning curiosity, a curiosity which was becoming torture. She must really have been very pretty once, with her gentle eyes, so large, so calm, so open that they looked as if she never closed them as other people do. Her dress was rather ridiculous, a regular old maid’s toilet, and, without making her look a fright, did not set her off.

I seemed to see into her soul, as I had seen into M. Chantal’s a little before, as if I surveyed from end to end her humble, simple, devoted life; but a necessity forced my lips, an imperious necessity of questioning her, of learning if she too had loved him; if she had suffered like him from that long-drawn sorrow, secret and acute, which none knows, none sees, none suspects, but which finds vent at night, in the solitude of the darkened room. I looked at her, I saw her heart beating under her muslin bodice, and I asked myself whether that sweet, frank face had groaned night by night in the moist thickness of her pillow, and sobbed, her body racked by convulsions, in the fever of her burning bed.

And I said to her, cautiously, as children do when they break a trinket to see inside it, “If you had seen M. Chantal crying just now, you would have been sorry for him.”

She trembled, “What? He was crying?”

“Yes, he was crying!”

“And why was he?”

She seemed very much perturbed. I replied:

“Because of you.”

“Because of me?”

“Yes. He was telling me how much he used to love you, and what it cost him to marry his present wife instead of you....”

Her pale face seemed to me to lengthen a little; her eyes, always open, her calm eyes closed suddenly, so quickly that they seemed to have closed for ever. She slipped from her chair to the floor, and collapsed there gently, gradually, as a fallen veil might have done.

I cried, “Help, help! Mademoiselle Perle is unwell.”

Madame Chantal and her daughters rushed to her, and, as they went for water and a napkin and vinegar, I got my hat and escaped.

I hurried away, my heart torn, my mind full of remorse and regret. And yet now and again I was glad; I felt as if I had done something commendable and necessary.

I kept asking myself, “Was I wrong? Was I right?” They had that in their souls like a bullet in a healed-up wound. Will they not be happier now? It was too late to renew their torture, and not too late for them to remember with fondness.

And perhaps some evening next spring, moved by a moonbeam falling through the branches on the grass at their feet, they will take each other’s hands and clasp them in memory of all that suppressed cruel suffering; and perhaps, too, that brief clasp will send through their veins a little of that thrill which otherwise they would never have known, and will excite in those dead ones, resuscitated in an instant, the swift, divine sensation of that intoxication, that madness, which gives lovers more happiness in one thrill than other men can gather in a lifetime.

THE END.

GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.

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1. THE TWELVE BEST SHORT STORIES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Selected by Adam L. Gowans.

2. FAMOUS GHOST-STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS. Selected by Adam L. Gowans from the best writers in the language.

3. CHIUSHINGURA, OR THE LOYAL LEAGUE. A famous Japanese Romance. Translated by F. Victor Dickins, C.B.

4. A CAPTIVE OF LOVE. A novel from the original of Bakin, the greatest novelist of Japan.

5. THE TWELVE BEST SHORT STORIES IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. Selected by Auguste Dorchain.

The publishers beg to draw attention to the following facts:—

1. The type of the books in this series will be set by hand and the irregular alignment which makes the reading of some cheap series so distressing to the eye will thus be avoided.

2. The paper will be of good quality and “free from mechanical wood.”

3. The books will be strongly, not flimsily, bound in Winterbottom’s extra cloth.

The publishers make no announcement at present with regard to the issue of future volumes, which will be issued at such irregular intervals as may be found convenient.

GOWANS’S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY

6"x4". Parchment covers. 6d. net per volume.

This series contains masterpieces of our own and foreign literatures produced in dainty form. Complete lists will be sent on application.

The following plays are published in the series:—

4. THE LADY OF LYONS. By Lord Lytton.

5. THE TOWER OF NESLE. By Alex. Dumas. Translated by Adam L. Gowans.

6. EVERYMAN.

9. THE BIRDS OF ARISTOPHANES. Translated by Dr. B. H. Kennedy.

11. ALLADINE AND PALOMIDES. By Maurice Maeterlinck. Translated by Alfred Sutro.

18. LE CID. By Corneille. [In French.]

20. INTERIOR. By Maurice Maeterlinck. Translated by William Archer.

26. THE DEATH OF TINTAGILES. By Maurice Maeterlinck. Translated by Alfred Sutro.

28. THE SEVEN PRINCESSES. By Maurice Maeterlinck. Translated by William Metcalfe.

43. THE INTRUDER. By Maurice Maeterlinck.