"The young girl went away, distracted but not convinced. And she watched her mother. "I remember distinctly the strange alteration that then took place in her. She was always grave and melancholy. She used to fix on us her great earnest eyes as if she wanted to read what was at the bottom of our hearts. We did not know what to think of her, and we used to maintain that she was looking out for a husband. "One evening her doubts were dispelled. She caught her mother with a lover. Thereupon she said coldly, like a man of business laying down the terms of an agreement: "'Here is what I have determined to do, mamma: We will both go away to some little town--or rather into the country. We will live there quietly as well as we can. Your jewelry alone may be called a fortune. If you wish to marry some honest man, so much the better; still better will it be if I can find one. If you don't consent to do this, I will kill myself.' "This time, the Comtesse ordered her daughter to go to bed, and never to administer again this lecture so unbecoming in the mouth of a child towards her mother. "Yveline's answer to this was: 'I give you a month to reflect. If, at the end of that month, we have not changed our way of living, I will kill myself, since there is no other honorable issue left to my life.' "Then she took herself off. "At the end of a month, the Comtesse Samoris was giving balls and suppers just the same as ever. Yveline then, under the pretext that she had a bad toothache purchased a few drops of chloroform from a neighboring chemist. The next day she purchased more; and, every time she went out, she managed to procure small doses of the narcotic. She filled a bottle with it. "One morning she was found in bed, lifeless, and already quite cold, with a cotton mask over her face. "Her coffin was covered with flowers, the church was hung in white. There was a large crowd at the funeral ceremony. "Ah! well, if I had known--but you never can know--I would have married that girl, for she was infernally pretty." "And what became of the mother?" "Oh! she shed a lot of tears over it. She has only begun to receive visits again for the past week." "And what explanation is given of the girl's death?" "Oh! 'tis pretended that it was an accident caused by a new stove, the mechanism of which got out of order. As a good many such accidents have happened, the thing looks probable enough." * * * * * A PASSION The sea was brilliant and unruffled, scarcely stirred, and on the pier the entire town of Havre watched the ships as they came on. They could be seen at a distance, in great numbers; some of them, the steamers, with plumes of smoke; the others, the sailing vessels, drawn by almost invisible tugs, lifting towards the sky their bare masts, like leafless trees.