‘You hate me too much to lose your temper with me,’ she said to him one day in the presence of the landlady; ‘you are afraid to trust yourself. If you gave way for a moment you might kill me. The temptation would be too strong for you.’ Jack Chicot said never a word, but stood with his arms folded, smiling at her, heaven knows how bitterly. One day she stung him into speech. ‘You are in love with some other woman,’ she cried. ‘I know it.’ ‘I have seen a woman who is not like you,’ he answered with a sigh. ‘And you are in love with her.’ ‘For her unlikeness to you? That would be a charm, certainly.’ ‘Go to her. Go to your ----’ The sentence ended in a foul epithet--one of the poison-flowers of Parisian argot. ‘The journey is too long,’ he said. ‘It is not easy to travel from hell to heaven.’ Jack Chicot had been once to the Prince Frederick Theatre since his wife’s return to the stage. He went on the first night of the grand spectacular burlesque which had brought Mr. Smolendo so much money. He sat looking on with a grave, unchanging face, while the audience around him grinned in ecstasy; and when La Chicot asked his opinion of the performance, he openly expressed his disgust. ‘Are not my costumes beautiful?’ she asked. ‘Very. But I should prefer a little less beauty and a little more decency.’ The rest of the audience were easier to please. They saw no indecency in the dresses. No doubt they saw what they had paid to see, and that contented them. Never had woman more of her own way than La Chicot after that wonderful recovery of hers. She went where she liked, drank as much as she liked, spent every sixpence of her liberal salary on her own pleasure, and was held accountable by no one. Her husband was a husband only in name. She saw more of Desrolles than of Jack Chicot. There was only one person who ever ventured to reprove or expostulate with her, and that was the man who had saved her life, at so large a sacrifice of time and care. George Gerard called upon her now and then, and spoke to her plainly. ‘You have been drinking again,’ he would say, while they were shaking hands. ‘I have had nothing since last night, when I took a glass of champagne with my supper.’ ‘You mean a bottle; and you have had half a bottle of brandy this morning to correct the champagne.’ She no longer attempted to deny the impeachment. ‘Well, why should I not drink?’ she exclaimed, defiantly. ‘Who cares what becomes of me?’ ‘I care: I have saved your life once, against long odds. You owe me something for that. But I cannot save you if you make up your mind to drink yourself to death. Brandy is a slow suicide, but for a woman of your temperament it’s as certain as prussic acid.’