So he had been deceived from the first! Even before his marriage had Claude and Odette loved each other! Nothing but treachery! He recalled the first months of his married life, when Odette had been so inexpressibly sweet and fascinating; those long, passionate embraces; their strolls in the woods; he could see the waves dancing in the sunbeams as he closed his eyes; that enchanting "solitude à deux;" and he gnashed his teeth as he reflected that it was all treachery and deceit. Odette had been lying when she told him she loved him; lying, when she embraced him. Nothing, nothing was left him. All had been false. She must die; and Claude must die. Paul recalled Claude's visit to Canet, when he thought him the soul of generosity and honor; and that, too, was false treachery! Claude wanted to establish his mistress in a house of her own, and could find no more suitable husband for her than his wife's son! Oh! it was infamous! And perhaps people thought that Paul had walked into the snare with his eyes open! No one could have believed that he alone was blind to his dishonor, but must have supposed his complaisant approval arose from feeling it to be to his interest to silently acquiesce! Paul stopped. He was seized with a sudden dizziness that forced him to cling to a tree for support. He had been walking blindly through the Bois de Boulogne, deserted and quiet at this late hour. His honor, as well as his happiness, had been smitten to the ground. Again he felt the instinct to kill his guilty wife drive him on. He dashed madly forward. He stumbled over a stone and fell to the ground. He grasped a drooping branch of the tree above him, and raised himself to his feet. He found his wild flight stopped by a low wall, broken down in many places, and covered with moss. He uttered a cry of dismay, for it was a cemetery that lay before him, gloomy and silent. Paul saw the white gravestones in the pale moonlight, extending as far as he could see. The neglected cypresses and willows stretched their shaggy arms towards each other in ghostly silence. The grass grew thick and rank on the graves. No grand monuments or tombs were to be seen; only simple crosses, or plain marble slabs, gray and discolored with age. It all seemed to Paul so sad, so sweetly peaceful. His anger subsided. He was hurrying to St. Cloud to kill his wife, and here lay Death at his feet. He leaned his arms on the wall and gazed on the solemn scene. Just before him lay a grave whose plain slab bore no other words save this simple inscription: "My Mother." Probably some poor, nameless woman, whose child had raised this touching tribute to her memory.