The universe was a mystery to Pierre Dupont. Search it as he might, he could find no key to its curious distribution of miseries and injustices. It seemed to him that, if some people would be content to take a little less, there might be a little more for him; but he was by no means certain of the soundness of this comfortable theory. A little less gold plate on that harness, for instance, a yard less of lace on the gown of that lady just stepping into her brougham, a single diamond from her marquise ring--no, that superficial and snarling philosophy did not help Pierre; there was neither envy nor rage in his heart as yet; only a dull despair, a groping in the dark for a reason. Many of these fortunate people, he supposed, deserved their fortunes, and had earned them. They were cleverer than he, and had friends and opportunities not vouchsafed, perhaps, to him. But why, since he was not clever, and since he had neither friends nor opportunities, should he have been deprived first of his principal means of self-support, and then of his consolation, his courage, his other and braver self? [Illustration] And now it was the anniversary of Marie's death. That made the day even harder to bear; for in some subtle way the remembrance of certain hours or moments in a dear dead past is always more bitter when we say to ourselves with a sigh, "It was just a year ago." Nature was in no buoyant mood. A cold, drizzling rain, which ought to have been snow, fell from time to time. The chill dampness made people draw their wraps closer, and look drearily at the sky. Even the children appeared less joyous than usual. Men turned up the bottoms of their trousers and the collars of their coats, and hurried past one another with a gruff nod that would have been a smile on a sunny day. The bare branches of the trees shivered in the wind, and a few snowbirds huddled themselves together cheerlessly here and there, as if even they wished themselves farther south.