was by no means carried away with me; but as she had a good heart, I hoped that she would love me some day--I would make her love me. As a matter of course, I told everything to Philip, whom I saw every day at the work-yard, and as Catherine and I were engaged, I wanted him to meet her. Perhaps you have already guessed the end, monsieur le cure. Philip was handsome, lively, good-tempered--everything that I was not; and without attempting it, innocently enough, he fascinated Catherine. Ah, Catherine had a frank and honest heart, and as soon as she recognized what had happened she at once told me everything. Ah, I can never forget that moment! It was Catherine's birthday, and in honor of it I had bought a little cross of gold which I had arranged in a box with cotton. We were alone in the back shop, and she had just brought me my soup. I took my box from my pocket, and, opening it, I showed her the jewel. Then she burst into tears. [Illustration] "'Forgive me, Jack,' she said, 'and keep that for her whom you will marry. As for me, I can never become your wife. I love another--I love Philip.' IV. "Believe me, I had trouble enough then, monsieur le cure; my soul was full of it. But what could I do, since I loved them both? Only what I believed was for their happiness--let them marry. And as Philip had always lived freely, and spent as he made, I lent him my hoard to buy the furniture. "Then they were married, and for a while all went well. They had a little boy, and I stood sponsor for him and named him Camille, in remembrance of his mother. It was a little after the birth of the baby that Philip began to go wrong. I was mistaken in him--he was not made for marriage; he was too fond of frivolity and pleasure. You live in a poor quarter, monsieur le cure, and you must know the sad story by heart--the workman who glides little by little from idleness into drunkenness, who is off on a spree for two or three days, who does not bring home his week's wages, and who only returns to his home, broken up by his spree, to make scenes and to beat his wife. In less than two years Philip became one of these wretches. At first I tried to reform him, and sometimes, ashamed of himself, he would attempt to do better; but that did not last long. Then my remonstrances only irritated him; and when I went to his house, and he saw me look sadly around the chamber made bare by the pawn-shop, at poor Catherine, thin and pale with grief, he became furious. One day he had the audacity to be jealous of me on account of his wife, who was as pure as the blessed Virgin, reminding me that I was once her lover and accusing me of still being so, with slanders and infamies that I should be ashamed to repeat. We almost flew at each other's throats. I saw what I must do. I would see Catherine and my godson no more; and as for Philip, I would only meet him when by chance we worked on the same job.