"She must have perceived my feeling. She too was silent, and I saw her bosom heaving painfully. She asked about my daughter, but evidently did not hear my answer. An intense pity seized me as I looked at her--the beautiful, noble, unhappy woman, with so long a life before her still and so little hope of happiness. Was it a foolish, unreal fear that prevented me from taking her in my arms? Do you believe that I could possibly have been happy with her? Who can know how the years will change one! But at that time it would have been a lie and a crime. "The companion came with a glass of milk. Lucile drank a little and returned the glass with a gesture of aversion. 'I am no longer thirsty,' she said; 'is the carriage ready?' "I offered my arm to escort her down. On the stairs she stopped an instant. "'Do you play much now?' she asked. "'I have not touched the violin since I became a widower,' I replied. 'Music is a pleasure only when one is cheerful and sociable. In solitude it revives all buried sorrows.' "'Yes,' she said, 'it does, and one is grateful for it. There are people so poor that their only possessions consist of old griefs, without which they could not live. They remind one that there was once a time when the heart was living, for only a living heart can feel misery. You have the advantage of me in not feeling this truth.' "I felt her hand trembling on my arm. 'Lucile!' I cried, pressing her arm to me. Who knows what might have happened then if, her pride being suddenly roused, she had not drawn away from me and hastened down the remaining steps alone. Before I could reach her she was seated in the carriage. "'Farewell! Remember me to your daughter. And--no! I was about to say _Au revoir!_ But we shall probably never meet again.' "She extended her hand to me from the carriage with a look that hurt me, for it seemed to ask whether I had either hope or desire to see her again. I bent over the small, white hand, and kissed it. Then the horses started, and I stood alone in the sunny street, until her veil, fluttering in the fresh mountain breeze, vanished from my sight." MINKA MINKA.