“After that,” continued Madame Gerdy, “we left the Quai Saint-Michel. You wished it; and I obeyed, in spite of my apprehensions. You told me, that, to please you, I ought to look like a great lady. You provided teachers for me, for I was so ignorant that I scarcely knew how to sign my name. Do you remember the queer spelling in my first letter? Ah, Guy, if you had really only been a poor student! When I knew that you were so rich, I lost my simplicity, my thoughtlessness, my gaiety. I feared that you would think me covetous, that you would imagine that your fortune influenced my love. Men who, like you, have millions, must be unhappy! They must be always doubting and full of suspicions, they can never be sure whether it is themselves or their gold which is loved, and this awful doubt makes them mistrustful, jealous, and cruel. Oh my dearest, why did we leave our dear little room? There, we were happy. Why did you not leave me always where you first found me? Did you not know that the sight of happiness irritates mankind? If we had been wise, we would have hid ours like a crime. You thought to raise me, but you only sunk me lower. You were proud of our love; you published it abroad. Vainly I asked you in mercy to leave me in obscurity, and unknown. Soon the whole town knew that I was your mistress. Every one was talking of the money you spent on me. How I blushed at the flaunting luxury you thrust upon me! You were satisfied, because my beauty became celebrated; I wept, because my shame became so too. People talked about me, as those women who make their lovers commit the greatest follies. Was not my name in the papers? And it was through the same papers that I heard of your approaching marriage. Unhappy woman! I should have fled from you, but I had not the courage. I resigned myself, without an effort, to the most humiliating, the most shameful of positions. You were married; and I remained your mistress. Oh, what anguish I suffered during that terrible evening. I was alone in my own home, in that room so associated with you; and you were marrying another! I said to myself, ‘At this moment, a pure, noble young girl is giving herself to him.’ I said again, ‘What oaths is that mouth, which has so often pressed my lips, now taking?’ Often since that dreadful misfortune, I have asked heaven what crime I had committed that I should be so terribly punished? This was the crime. I remained your mistress, and your wife died. I only saw her once, and then scarcely for a minute, but she looked at you, and I knew that she loved you as only I could. Ah, Guy, it was our love that killed her!” She stopped exhausted, but none of the bystanders moved. They listened breathlessly, and waited with feverish emotion for her to resume. Mademoiselle d’Arlange had not the strength to remain standing; she had fallen upon her knees, and was pressing her handkerchief to her mouth to keep back her sobs. Was not this woman Albert’s mother?