I was walking along the Rue des Martins. I was thoughtful, for I had just been witness to a sight that greatly moved me. My duties as a reporter for one of the large Paris dailies had taken me to Havre just as the ship came in which brought the Communists home from exile, and, hardened as I confess myself to be to the more frequent aspects of human suffering, the sight of those men crowding forward to catch the first glimpse of the friends who had come to meet them, touched me with a feeling that was not unlike compassion. I was thinking of them and wondering what sort of fate awaited the older men I saw there, when a sudden cry from over my head startled me from my musings, and looking up, I saw a woman peering out of the top window of a wretched apartment.

She showed such signs of distress in her countenance that I at once knew something terrible had occurred within, and foreseeing matter for my next article, I immediately entered the house.

I found myself confronted by frightened faces everywhere. All the inmates knew that something was wrong on the top floor, but no one knew just what. They followed me when they saw me determined to find out. The consequence was that a small crowd pressed behind me as I mounted the last stair; a crowd that seemed to awe if not alarm the trembling woman who awaited me at the top, for she started back as she saw it, muttering to herself:

“Mon Dieu! Elise never had so many visitors before!”

A door swinging on its hinges at the right of this woman at once attracted my attention. Advancing with small ceremony, I threw it open. I found my expectations more than realized. On the bed before me lay the outstretched form of a woman, the pallor and fixedness of whose face bespoke death. Not a natural death either, for she was dressed as if she had just come in from the street, with the exception of her bonnet, which lay on the floor beside her, where it had evidently been flung by a careless hand. Otherwise the room was in perfect order, I may even say in holiday order. From the work neatly folded on the shelf to the small bunch of fresh flowers that adorned a table set out with an untouched meal—a meal which even in the hurried glance I gave it I saw was arranged for two—all bespoke one of those rare days of rest and relaxation which now and then enter a French working-woman’s life.

But the dead face on the pillow—what did it betoken? Had murder crept into this humble dwelling or was it a suicide I beheld? Involuntarily drawing nearer the bed, I looked at the face before me more closely. It was that of a young and pretty woman, and while touchingly meagre and sad was touchingly delicate also. It was almost a lady’s face, and had it not been for the evidence of toil displayed by the hands I should certainly have taken it for such. As it was I could not doubt that a real working-woman lay there, though from the marks of refinement observable in her dress and the presence of certain choice books on the shelf over her head, she was evidently a woman of taste and education.

“It is a suicide!” I declared, seeing a bottle of well-known poison protruding from under the pillow.

“Of course it is,” murmured a voice over my shoulder. “Don’t you see what she has written on that paper near you?”

I glanced down at the table by which I was standing and saw a sheet of common note paper, inscribed with these words:

“My husband was a Communist and was exiled. He was all I had in the world, and since his departure I have only lived to see him again. But I have had no news, no letter. I have been patient, however, for I have waited for this day. But it has come, and it has not brought him. I went to the ship myself and looked at every man who left it. He was not amongst them. So now I know he is dead. That being so, there is no more reason why I should live.

“Elise Picard.”

Involuntarily I had read these words aloud. A murmur of almost ferocious sympathy greeted them from the crowd that had gathered at my back. The sound disturbed me, for my thoughts had flown at once to the ship and that throng of pale and eager men I had myself seen in the morning. I felt a strange inclination to be alone, and shouldering my way out past the humble table set so touchingly with a meal never destined to be eaten, I made my way into the hall.

But before I could reach the stairs a woman advanced and laid her hand on my arm. It was the same who had given the first alarm.

“Would you mind stepping into my room a minute?” she asked. “There is something I would like to show you.”

Naturally curious, I followed at once.

“What is it?” I inquired, when we were shut in an apartment of even scantier proportions than the one we had just left.

“Only some letters which Elise put into my hands a little while ago—before—before she showed herself so tired of life. You see we had been neighbors here, and Elise, though she was far above me—she was born a lady, Monsieur—was kind to me, and told me many of her griefs. I could not appreciate them all, for I never was educated; but I do know what it is to love, for I had a good husband myself once, and so when she spoke of him I could understand. And there was not a day she did not speak of him. It was as if he always stood at her side. Her very eyes had a far-away look, as if she was seeing something more than the rest of us did. I used to have an awe of her, especially when she smiled to herself.”

“It is very sad,” said I. “And did she never hear from him after he was taken away?”

“No. She never doubted that he lived, though, and would come back. ‘I feel it here,’ she used to say, laying her hand on her heart. ‘Why else do I live?’ she would add. Only yesterday her face was like the sunlight. ‘I am sure he will come home with the rest,’ she cried, ‘and then I shall know why he did not write.’ Did you see how she had his dinner ready? I went with her to market, and it was touching to hear her say, ‘I must get this,’ or ‘I must get that; he used to like it so well.’”

“Did you go with her to the wharf?” I asked, willing to learn all I could.

“No, Monsieur. She didn’t seem to want me to. But I shall never forget the look she gave me as she went out of the door. There wasn’t any doubt in it. To my foolish mind it seemed to say, ‘I shall never be lonely in this room any more.’ Mon Dieu! when I think how that look must have brightened when she saw the poor wanderers crowding forward out of the ship, and then have faded away to what it was when she came back alone, my heart is ready to break.”

“You saw her, then, after her return?”

“A moment. She came to my door with the letters you have there. As soon as I saw her I knew what had happened, but I couldn’t speak. My tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of my mouth. You see, I had been as sure as she that he would be there with the rest.”

“Didn’t you say anything then?”

“Not a word; she didn’t give me a chance. ‘My husband is dead,’ was her greeting as she opened the door. ‘I looked in the face of every one of the exiles as they left the ship, and he was not there. I want to leave these letters with you; they were meant for him.’ And without looking me in the face she laid the package down with a slow stiff movement, as if she were already half dead herself, then went out and closed the door. There was something in her look which told me not to follow her.”

“But weren’t you afraid of what she would do? Didn’t you fear she might commit suicide?”

“No, sir. Yet if I had I don’t think I should have followed her.” Then as I looked up surprised the good woman hastened to say:

“It is a sadder story than you think. If you care to hear—”

I did not wait for her to finish.

“Tell me all you know about her,” said I.

The woman eagerly complied. The facts which she gave me, together with a few others afterwards gleaned by me from a different source, form the basis of the following history, a history which I am sure you will pardon me for giving in my own words rather than in those of my informants:

Elise Lepage was not a beauty, yet in her earlier youth, at least, she possessed a charm which always insured her the admiration and very often the love of those with whom she came in contact. Her father, who was a musician of somewhat mediocre talent, recognized this charm, and in his simple way calculated upon its winning her a suitable husband, notwithstanding his small means and her consequent lack of a dowry. To him she was a paragon, and when, at the close of a long day of unremitting labor at the piano, he saw her approaching him in a dainty fresh robe ready for their usual walk on the boulevard, his face would light up with such pride and joy that the loving girl who watched him felt the tear gush to her eye at the same moment the smile rose to her lip.

They lived in a plain but sufficiently comfortable apartment, and had for neighbors two young men by the name of Picard,—brothers. These two young men occupied the apartment above them; and one of them, the youngest, having some taste for music, a natural acquaintance had sprung up between him and M. Lepage, which presently involved the older brother and Mlle. Lepage. The consequence was that Jean, the elder brother, fell in love with the fresh, charming young girl, and, being himself a man of no conventional prejudices—the future Communist in fact—he offered to marry her without any other fortune than that of her youth and many virtues. The old father was delighted. First, because he felt himself failing in health and was anxious to see his darling’s future secured; and secondly, because he liked this man better than any one else in the world save and excepting always his dear and much admired daughter. Why he felt this extraordinary affection for a man of whom he was forced to acknowledge to himself he knew but little, he could not have told had he tried. Certainly it was not because he understood him, for he did not; neither was it because the other possessed attractions of a peculiar or marked nature. Jean Picard was not handsome, nor was he even gifted in manner or conversation, yet old Mr. Lepage loved him and hailed the prospect of his being his son-in-law with as much fervor as if he were the owner of millions instead of being the physician of one of the poorest and worst paying quarters in the whole city. He trusted him, and that fact, perhaps, illustrates the character of the two men. For Jean Picard was to be trusted in all matters of the heart and conscience; it was only his head that was at fault, or, perhaps, I should say his temperament. He had inherited traditions of the First Revolution, and believed absolutely in the might of the people. But of this he had nothing to say in those days, his head and his heart being joined in the one wish, the one hope, the one purpose, to make Elise his wife.

The evening which he had chosen to speak to M. Lepage—he had never breathed a word of his desires to Elise herself—was, as he afterwards remembered, an especially beautiful one. The moon was shining, and as, filled with the joy of a successful suit, he stepped from the apartment of M. Lepage, something in the quiet beauty of this round and serene orb touched the poetry that exists with all true love in the heart, and drew him, in spite of his usually active ways, to a window opening from the corridor on to a small garden belonging to the concierge. He was looking from this window and dreaming of Elise, when his glance, which had been mechanically fixed upon a leafy retreat beneath him, became earnest, deep, and inquiring, and with a startled gesture of surprise, he bent forward and listened as if his life depended upon his hearing what went on in the garden below him. Had he seen anything which threatened his happiness, and if so, what?

His firm and controlled countenance tells little, but his wandering look and the unsteady step with which he leaves the window and betakes himself to his own room bespeak strong agitation. If we follow him and watch him as a half hour later he slowly rouses from the deep and troubled brooding into which he had sunk immediately upon his entrance, and turning towards the door, waits with a look not to be mistaken for the advance of the step just becoming audible upon the stairs, we shall undoubtedly learn from his own lips what it is that has disturbed him so deeply at a moment he esteemed himself so profoundly blessed.

Yet is he going to speak? His lips have opened, his face has assumed a terrible expression, he has even advanced two paces toward the door to meet the expected comer, when suddenly he pauses. The face he sees before him is not the one he anticipated. It is that of his brother, to be sure, but it does not wear the look he had schooled himself to meet, the triumphant look that goes with happy love, however wrongfully it may be won. The surprise upsets him, and for a moment the words falter on his tongue, then all his manhood re-asserts itself, and imperiously beckoning his brother to enter, he closes the door and stands with the handle still in his grasp, looking at Camille.

“You are in trouble,” said he shortly. “What is it?” Then as he saw his brother start and uneasily drop his eyes, added bitterly: “Have you told her what you are, and does she refuse to marry you?”

Camille, who was of a fiery nature, but who for certain reasons stood somewhat in awe of his brother, looked for a moment as if he could have leaped at his throat; but he restrained himself, and while the veins swelled on his forehead and his face grew fiery red, he stammered:

“Whom do you mean by her? I do not understand you.”

“That is not true; you understand me perfectly,” was the rude but brave Jean’s straightforward response. “But if you must have names I allude to Elise, the pure, innocent, high-minded girl whom by arts I do not profess to understand you have succeeded in pleasing, till, for aught I know, she considers you a model of virtue and goodness.”

“And if she did?” broke in the other impetuously.

Jean drew a deep breath and stepped slowly back.

“I should undeceive her,” he declared, “if by the act I alienated her good-will forever.”

Camille, who for some cause did not resent the first clause of this sentence, started at the second, and gave his brother a sharp look.

“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed he, with as much wonder as jealousy in his tone. “Do you love her too?”

The look which Jean turned upon his brother made that other’s weak and selfish heart stand still.

“I love her,” said he, “I will not say too, for you do not love her. Had you loved her you would have fled from her instead of using all your arts secretly to win her. A criminal—”

“Hush!” exclaimed the other, with a terrified look around him that for some reason made Jean quail with a sense of apprehension. “Do you want to draw the police upon me?”

With a stride Jean advanced upon his brother, and, laying his strong hand on his shoulders, uncompromisingly turned him towards the light.

“You tremble,” he muttered under his breath. “You shrink, and your face is like marble. Mon Dieu! Camille, is there anything new?”

With a suppressed cry Camille tore himself from his brother’s hands.

“Who has given you the right to question me?” he cried. “I will not have it. I have had enough of your spying.” And flinging himself violently towards the door of his own room, he was on the point of disappearing from Jean’s presence, when the latter, with another movement of his strong arm, drew him back and himself entered the apartment.

In an instant he came back. His face was like stone, and he had in his hand a valise fully packed, which he set heavily down on the table before Camille’s eyes.

“What does this mean?” he asked. “Where are you going and why have you kept your departure a secret from me?”

For a moment the stricken Camille did not reply; then he broke down, and flinging himself on his knees, burst forth with the cry:

“I am a ruined man, Jean; I—I tried it again, and this time it will be found out. To-morrow, to-night, possibly, my employer will look over his books, and—”

“How much is it?” broke in Jean, in a low, strained voice.

“Ten thousand francs,” murmured the other. “All gone.”

“Lost at play?”

Camille nodded his head.

Jean drew back, covering his face for a moment with his hands.

“I have just that amount,” he said, “saved up. Your employer shall have it to-morrow. As for you,” he added bitterly, “I wash my hands of you. This is twice.”

His voice broke, and he hurriedly withdrew to the window, as if the sight of his brother’s face maddened him.

He returned almost instantly, however, and walking straight up to Camille, demanded:

“What were you doing there?” pointing sternly below. “This bag shows you intended to abscond to-night. Were you bidding her farewell or—”

He had not strength to finish, but his look filled up the hiatus left in his speech.

Camille faltered beneath that glance. If he could have seen a way to escape, his furtive, worried look showed he would have availed himself of it. But his brother’s eye held him and would have the truth. With a gasp he broke forth:

“I have bidden her farewell. She does not know why I go. She loves me and she trusts me. I—I would have persuaded her to go with me if I could. I love her, I say, whatever you may call it. I love her, do you hear, and if I could have induced her to leave her father you would not have caught me in this box. It was my despair.”

He stopped. There was something in Jean’s face which told him that silence was better than speech at this moment. The first words of Jean convinced him of it.

“You are a villain,” said he, “and the punishment of your villainy shall be a confession. I hope to marry Elise Lepage,” he went on, raising his hand for silence as he saw his brother about to protest, “and I do not intend she shall waste her life in useless regrets over the loss of one so unworthy as yourself. Come, then, and in her presence, if not in that of her father, proclaim yourself the criminal that you are or—”

“Or what?” asked the other, with a wild gleam, half of defiance, half of fear.

“Or I keep my ten thousand francs and leave you to the tender mercies of a man whose justice, you have reason to know, is stronger than his mercy.”

A cold sweat broke out on Camille’s face. He looked at his brother with great staring eyes as if he could hardly believe in the alternative that was offered him. Seeing it, Jean continued:

“It is three years since the day I first awoke to the knowledge that I had for my brother a man who had provoked the justice of the law, and only escaped by the ignorance or blindness of those he had defrauded. In those three years I have spared nothing, either in the way of money or effort, to give you what you wanted and save you, if possible, from the repetition of your dastardly crime. How have you repaid me? By stealing the fancy of the woman I loved, or,” as Camille faintly objected, “the fancy of a girl whom you knew I respected, and whom you also knew would never have given you her regard had she known your real character or suspected the shadow that hung above you. She thinks you true, you say, and trusts you. That means she will remember you lovingly in your absence, possibly wait for your return, when return you never will. Elise is too fine a girl to be thus sacrificed,” asserted Jean, “and if I did not love her I should still say, ‘Come below, and show yourself to her for what you are.’ Better she should suffer this one shock, that in itself carries healing, than linger on for years a prey to a pain of longing that will be none the less keen because it will be so bravely hidden.”

But Camille had sunk before this prospect.

“I cannot,” he murmured, “I would rather go to the galleys.”

Meantime, in her own little room below, Elise was bitterly weeping. She had loved Camille almost unconsciously. Not till she saw him about to leave her did she realize how deeply he had entered into her dreams and hopes. Then the mystery of his departure heightened its effect. Though the ready tale he told of the fine position which had been offered him in a mercantile house in Peru was plausible enough, there was something in his manner and the fact that he wished to carry her away with him secretly that struck an icy doubt to her heart, and, devoted as she was to him, she felt as if she would give all the world, were it hers, to throw herself into her father’s arms and ask him for his sympathy and counsel. But that was expressly forbidden. Her father must know nothing of her sorrow or her love; her wilful lover would not have it. And young as she was, innocent as her thoughts were of wrong or deception, there was something in this ban laid between her and the father she so idolized, that awakened strange doubts and fears in her otherwise trusting bosom.

Her room adjoined that of M. Lepage, and more than once during her grief and tears she had heard his restless foot approach the door of communication, as though he were about to call her to him. But he did not; she was so quiet he evidently thought she was asleep, and finally all became as still in his room as it was deathlike in hers. And Elise wept on.

Suddenly there came a tap, not on the door she had been so fearful of seeing open, but on the one which led into the hall. Astonished, frightened almost, she crept to it and faintly asked who was there. A woman’s voice answered. It was the concierge, who handed her a small note. Hurriedly lighting her candle, Elise unfolded it and read:

“Mademoiselle—It is indispensable that I should have a few minutes’ conversation with you to-night. It is 10 o’clock, therefore your father has retired and your little sitting-room will be free. I shall not come alone.

“Respectfully, Jean Picard.”

A whirl of thoughts swept through Elise’s brain. She felt dizzy, almost sick, but she did not hesitate. Opening the door into her father’s room, she glided in. All was quiet. The good man was evidently asleep. Hastily crossing the floor, she gained the little sitting-room beyond, and, closing the door behind her, struck a light. Then, stopping but a moment to regain breath and still the nervous beatings of her heart, she approached the hall door and softly opened it. A low cry escaped her as she did so, the two men standing on the threshold bore in their countenances such signs of subdued agitation.

“What is it?” she faintly breathed, falling back with a slow step as they entered. “Why are you here so late? And together?” she could not help adding, as her eyes roamed from the one face to the other, both so white, both so drawn, both so filled with that strange look which a woman only sees on the countenance of the man who loves her.

As Camille did not answer, Jean replied:

“Mademoiselle,” said he, “I have come here on a very disagreeable duty. I have come to hear my brother tell you the truth. Camille, speak.”

Camille, thus abjured, cast one glance of burning anguish at his brother, then in a voice so unnatural Elise could scarcely believe it his own, exclaimed bitterly:

“He wishes me to tell you I am a villain. It is not a pleasant thing to say of one’s self, Mademoiselle, but it is true. I am a villain, and—and I advise you to forget me.”

The deep misery expressed in his tones shook Jean a little, but he was inexorable. Giving one glance at Elise, who, seemingly turned into stone by the terrible nature of her lover’s words, stood breathless and pale before them, he said:

“It is not enough, Camille; tell her why you go away to-night. Tell her it is a flight.”

“You have said it,” murmured the other, half savagely; then as Jean remained unchanged in look and attitude, cried harshly: “Mademoiselle, I am unworthy of your attention. I—I am no longer an honest man. I—have—”

“Stolen,” added a deep, firm voice.

The silence that followed this word was such as could be felt.

“And you wished to take me with you!” were the words that first interrupted it.

“I love you,” murmured Camille in a broken, miserable tone.

Elise turned slowly away.

“My father! my father!” burst involuntarily from her lips, and she held out her arms in dumb entreaty to the door that separated her from her beloved parent.

Instantly and as if in answer to her appeal, a strange murmur arose from that room, an inarticulate, almost an agonized murmur that struck terror to the hearts of those who heard it.

“My father!” again cried Elise, and this time she rushed at the door and tore it widely open. Her father lay stretched before her on the floor, having evidently fallen in his efforts to answer her summons.

It was midnight, two hours after the fatal event recorded in the above lines. Around the bedside of M. Lepage were grouped a physician, a priest, the concierge, Jean Picard, and his daughter. Camille was already far away.

The physician had given them no hope. In an hour or less the poor musician’s soul would be far away. He was sensible of it himself. Upon his first return to consciousness he had said:

“This is death.”

Elise, overwhelmed as she was, could not weep. Her one thought seemed to be: “Supposing I had listened to Camille’s entreaties, and had been flying from Paris in this terrible hour!”

Jean Picard, on the contrary, shed more than one tear. Perhaps the restraint he had put upon himself in the tragic scene which had preceded this catastrophe was having its revenge upon him now, or perhaps the look of peace with which the old man surveyed him and his daughter, standing, as they were, side by side, struck him by its contrast to the sad reality. It was midnight, as I have said, and the clock was striking. As it ceased, the dying man spoke:

“May I not see your two hands joined?” he asked, gazing tenderly at Jean and Elise.

As though a thunderbolt had fallen at her feet, Elise started and fell back. Jean hastily cleared the room and then leading her gently up to the bedside, he said solemnly:

“Mademoiselle, you must pardon your father. Three hours ago I had the honor to ask of him your hand in marriage, and he had the goodness to accord it to me. He does not know that we have had no conversation on this matter since, and that therefore such words must fall upon you with a shock.”

“Did you—were you—” she stammered, “thinking of this when you—”

“Mademoiselle,” interrupted Jean, “whatever I have ever done or said has been more for your sake than my own; believe that.” And he threw a glance at M. Lepage which she could not fail to understand.

Hiding her face in her hands, Elise knelt by the bedside. She could feel her father’s hand fall on her head, caressingly, lingeringly. In a minute more she heard him say:

“He is a good man; you will marry him, Elise?” Then as she did not answer, he added softly, “I should die so happy.”

With a spring she stood upright. “Jean Picard,” she said, “do you wish me for your wife?”

A great light which she could not help noticing in that solemn hour settled slowly over all his face.

“There is nothing I wish so much,” he answered; “it has been my dream for months.”

“After what you know of my heart?” she murmured, but so low the dying man could not hear her.

“Elise,” was the equally low answer, “I do not expect you to love me just yet, but you need a protector; let me be that protector. You need some one to comfort you and provide you with a home; let me be that friend, and I will trust my love to make you satisfied in the end.”

“You are a good man,” she murmured, in unconscious repetition of her father’s words; and, scarcely knowing what she did, she laid her hand in his, seeing more clearly the smile that parted her poor father’s lips at the action than the solemn look above with which Jean Picard accepted the trust thus imparted to him.

And so it was that Elise Lepage became the wife of Jean Picard, and a tragedy of the heart was begun which ended, as we have seen, in her death. For Elise was a conscientious woman, and once married set all her hopes on the prospect of some day becoming as much a wife in heart as she was now in name. But that heart was at first too sore with the violent wrench it had sustained to experience much beyond gratitude, and months rolled by without Jean Picard discovering in his young wife’s studiously kind manner any token of that passion which informed his own life. Yet the germ if not the flower of it was in her breast. Unconsciously to herself her husband was becoming all in all to her, but the feeling she experienced for him was so different from that she had given to his unworthy brother that she did not recognize it for what it was, and called it simply friendship.

The stirring events of the war and the opening days of the Commune did not alter matters. A numbness seemed to settle upon Elise as she saw her husband gradually identifying himself with a cause she both mistrusted and feared. That her coldness drove him into the savage warfare of the barricades she did not think. She knew him well enough to perceive that, however it was with others, with him it was a matter of conscience to uphold what he called the rights of the people. And perceiving this, she did not lose her respect for him, though her terrors accumulated and an element of dread came into her regard for him which caused her less and less to suspect the true nature of the emotions he inspired.

Nor did the culmination of his career and his subsequent downfall fully awaken her. Like a dream the dreadful days passed in which he was tried, condemned, and sentenced to exile; like a dream came the time of parting. And not till she felt herself torn from his clasping arms did she realize that life was ending for her, that the moment of death had come and she had never told him she loved him. Making a vigorous effort, for her senses seemed to be leaving her, she turned, all tremulous with passionate feeling, and holding out her arms to him, was about to utter what would have illumined his exile, when doubt, that black shadow of the soul, glided again across her spirit, and, saying to herself, “’Tis but a boundless regret at the loss of his goodness,” she permitted herself only to cry:

“Good-by, Jean. I will be true to you in your absence, and work if need be with my own hands, to sustain myself till you come back.”

His sad smile told her, when too late, what she had done, or rather had omitted to do.

The memory of that smile never left her. It haunted her day and night. The struggle into which she was forced for her daily bread only served to perpetuate her remorse. From a somewhat practical woman she became a dreamer of dreams. All her soul centred in the one wish, the one hope of seeing him again, if only to whisper in his ear the truth that was every day becoming more and more apparent in her own heart. She dared not write it to him. The first few dutiful letters she had sent had never been answered, and she was of a temperament that made it impossible for her to risk the chance of her heart’s story falling into alien or unsympathetic hands. But she could not entirely smother her desire for utterance. So the letters came to be written, which, though never sent, contained the beatings of her heart through that long and dreary separation, letters which she evidently fully expected would meet his eyes, and tell him in sweetest language what her own tongue had failed to do on that memorable day of their parting.

But hope cherished to the last, went suddenly out like a candle extinguished. The ship which was to bring the exiles home arrived in safety, and she saw it and saw them, but did not see him. The blow was fatal. Without asking a question, or doubting the doom which had fallen upon him and therefore upon her, she returned home and put, as we have seen, a desperate end to her own life. Love long repressed had had its full revenge. She could not live without its object.

Such was the story of Elise Picard, told me in substance by the good woman who had befriended her and in detail by the letters she had left behind her in this same woman’s charge. I had scarcely reached the end, that is, had scarcely laid the last letter down, when a sudden hubbub rose in the hall without, followed by a pitiful low moan which somehow or other awoke in me a peculiar apprehension. Springing to the door I flung it open. Never shall I forget the picture that met my eyes. Frozen each in his place by some great emotion, the eager crowd before me stood silent, aghast, gazing at a figure that, emaciated almost beyond the semblance of a man, crouched against the wall which led towards the room of death.

The hush, the intolerable anguish expressed by that form, bent almost double by the sudden weight of woe which had fallen upon it, touched me to the quick. Grasping the hand of the first person I could reach, I asked:

“Who is he? What does this mean?”

But I did not need an answer to my question; I knew without words that Jean Picard stood before me.

I learned afterwards that he was among the men that passed before her eyes on the wharf, but he was so changed by disease and grief she had not recognized him. He had been spending the last two hours in a search for her.