She always spends a longer time over her toilet, when we expect him home to dinner," she added, with a touch of naive femininity.

"But--if it be love, then that love is strange and unwomanly; it is a love that will not be for his good ..." "Why should you think that ?" "I don't know," said the girl simply.

"Isn't it an instinct ?" "Not a very unerring one in this case, I fear." "Why ?" "Because your own love for Paul Deroulede has blinded you--- Ah! you must pardon me, mademoiselle; you sought this conversation and not I, and I fear me I have wounded you.

Yet I would wish you to know how deep is my sympathy with you, and how great my desire to render you a service if I could." "I was about to ask a service of you, monsieur." "Then command me, I beg of you." "You are Paul's friend--persuade him that that woman in his house is a standing danger to his life and liberty." "He would not listen to me." "Oh! a man always listens to another." "Except on one subject--the woman he loves." He had said the last words very gently but very firmly.

He was deeply, tenderly sorry for the poor, deformed, fragile girl, doomed to be a witness of that most heartrending of human tragedies, the passing away of her own scarce-hoped-for happiness.