Singular thing! I, who in my amorous exaltation, my ardent thirst for sacrifice, had sincerely and passionately wished to die, was haunted for long months by the fear of having contracted Monsieur Georges's disease from his kisses. The slightest indisposition, the most fleeting pain, filled me with real terror. Often at night I awoke with mad frights and icy sweats. I felt of my chest, where, by suggestion, I suffered from pains and lacerations; I examined the discharges from my throat, in which I saw red streaks; and I gave myself a fever, by frequent counting of my pulse. It seemed to me, as I looked in the glass, that my eyes were growing hollow, and that my cheeks were growing pinker, with that mortal pink that colored Monsieur Georges's face. One night, as I was leaving a public ball, I took cold, and I coughed for a week. I thought that it was all over with me. I covered my back with plasters, and swallowed all sorts of queer medicines; I even sent a pious offering to Saint Anthony of Padua. Then, as, in spite of my fear, my health remained good, showing that I had equal power to endure the fatigues of toil and of pleasure, it all passed away. Last year, on the sixth of October, I went to lay flowers on M. Georges's grave, as I had done every year when that sad date came round. He was buried in the Montmartre cemetery. In the main path I saw, a few steps ahead of me, the poor grandmother. Oh! how old she was, and how old also were the two old servants who accompanied her! Arched, bent, tottering, she walked heavily, sustained at the arm-pits by her two old servants, as arched, as bent, as tottering, as their mistress. A porter followed them, carrying a large bunch of red and white roses. I slackened my pace, not wishing to pass them and be recognized. Hidden behind the wall of a high monument, I waited until the poor and sorrowful old woman had placed her flowers, told her beads, and dropped her tears upon her grandson's grave. They came back with the same feeble steps, through the smaller path, brushing against the wall of the vault on the other side of which I was hiding. I concealed myself still more, that I might not see them, for it seemed to me that it was my remorse, the phantoms of my remorse, that were filing by me. Would she have recognized me? Ah! I do not think so. They walked without looking at anything, without seeing even the ground about them. Their eyes had the fixity of the eyes of the blind; their lips moved and moved, and not a word came from them. One would have said that they were three old dead souls, lost in the labyrinth of the cemetery, and looking for their graves. I saw again that tragic night, and my red face, and the blood flowing from Georges's mouth. It sent a shiver to my heart. At last they disappeared.