"And I know now that Chance can bring about stranger happenings than can any fancied visitations from the spirit world. Here you have the story of this 'mystic' occurrence, which came near endangering my sanity, and which turns out to be a chance combination of a gust of wind, a sudden downpour of rain, and the strange elements in the character of our little friend Adolphe the printer's boy. "You remember that funny little chap with the crafty eye, his talent for gambling, and his admiration for the girl of 'La Prunelle'? A queer little mixture this child who has himself alone to look to for livelihood and care, the typical race of the Paris streets, the modified gamin from 'Les Miserables.' "About a month after the appearance of my book I lay on the divan one day,--your favorite place, you remember?--and lost myself in idle reasonings on the same old subject that never left my mind day or night, when the bell rang and Adolphe appeared, to call for the essay on 'Le Boulevarde.' There was an unusually nervous gleam in his eyes that day. I gave him an anisette and tried to find out what his trouble was. I did find it out, and I found out a good deal more besides. "Thanks to his good fortune as a gambler, Virginie came to look upon him with favor. Pierre was quite out of the race and Adolphe's affection was reciprocated as much as his heart could desire. But with his good fortune in love came all the suffering, all the torture, the suspicions that tear the hearts of us men when we set our hopes upon a woman's truth. Young as he was he went through them all, and now he was torturing himself with the thought that she did not really love him and was only pretending, while she gave her heart to another. Perhaps he was right--why not? "I talked to Adolphe as man to man, and managed to bring back a gleam of his usual jollity and sly humor. He took another glass of anisette, and said suddenly: "'M. Lucien--I did something----' "'Did what?' I asked. "'Something I should have told you long ago--it was wrong, and you've always been so nice to me----'