Eight days had passed away, and Marion sat in her chamber one afternoon, with eyes red with weeping, and cheeks pale with sorrow, so intently engaged turning over old letters which she had in her lap that she did not hear the door open, and one of her old playmates enter. When her friend called her by name, she sprang up startled. "Good day, Perette," she said; "what brings you here?" "or rather, what keeps _you_ here?" answered the girl, saucily; "you sit and you cry, and you never think of going near the Three Lilies, where your husband's new piece is to be acted by the strange players. What a wife you are! I should be the first to go if I had a husband who could charm half the town into the courtyard of an old inn. What have you got there? Have you been studying all the old songs your Adam made on you? I should think that you ought to have them all at your fingers' ends now like your rosary." The poor wife began to weep bitterly. "Don't you know then," she sobbed, "and is not the whole town of Arass talking about it--that he is going to Paris, and intends to leave me behind, and is never, never coming back again?" "Bah! nonsense," cried Perette, "what has put all that into your head?" "He said it to me himself, word for word; and since that time he has never eaten at home, and only returns very late at night, and sleeps below in the saloon." "Well, well, he has had his hands full of his new play, and then men are always fanciful, Marion, and must always be doing something to plague us; but, God be praised! all are not dead that do not laugh. Dry your eyes, be a sensible woman, and come with me to the play. What will your husband think of you if you don't even wish to see a play he has written himself?" So half comforting, half scolding, she drew the sorrowing young wife out of her room to the Three Lilies.