When the last fresh passion was over, Suzette, whose face had grown purer and sadder, roused Ralph Flare to his more legitimate ambition. "My child," she said, "if you will work in the gallery every day I will sew in one of the great magasans."

To see that he commenced fairly, she went with him into the Louvre, and he selected a fine Rembrandt—an old man, bearded and scarred, massively characterized, and clothed in magic light and shadow.

As Ralph stood at his easel, meditating the master, Suzette now fluttered around him, now ran off to the far end of the long hall, where he could see her in miniature, the sweetest portrait in France. At last he was really absorbed, and she went into the city to fulfil her promise. She was nimble of finger, and though the work distressed her at first, she thought of his applause, and persevered.

Their method was the marvel of the unimaginative Terrapin, who made some philosophic comments upon the "spooney" socially considered, and cut their acquaintance.

They breakfasted at the cremery at seven o'clock with the ouvriers, and dined at one of Duvall's bouillon establishments. Suzette found the work easier as she progressed. She was finally promoted to the place of coupeur, or cutter, and had the superintendence of a work-room, where she made four francs a day, and so paid all her expenses. At the end of the second month he took the money which he otherwise would have required for board, and bought her a watch and chain at the Palais Royale. At the same time he put the finishing touch to his picture, and when hung upon his wall, between their photographs, Suzette danced before it, and took half the credit upon herself.

Foolish Suzette! she did not know how that old man was her most dangerous rival. He had done what no beautiful woman in France could do—weakened her grasp upon Ralph Flare's heart. For now Ralph's old enthusiasm for his profession reasserted itself. It was his first and deepest love after all.

"My baby," he said one night, "there was a great artist named Raphael—and he had a little mistress, whom I don't think a whit prettier than mine. She was called the Fornarina, just as you may be called the Coutouriere, and he painted her portrait in the characters of saints and of the Virgin. She will be remembered a thousand years, because Raphael so loved and painted her. But he was not a great artist only because he loved the Fornarina. He had something that he loved better, and so have I."

"One more beloved than Suzette?" she cried.

"Yes! it is art. I loved you more than my art before; but I am going back to my first love."

Suzette tossed her head and said that she could never be jealous of a picture, and went her way with a simple faith and toiled; and as she toiled the more, so grew her love the purer and her content the more equal. She was not the aerial thing she had been. Retaining her elasticity of spirit, she was less volatile, more silent, more careful, more anxious.

It is wiser, not happier, to reach that estate called thought; for now she asked herself very often how long this chapter of her life would last. Must the time come when he must leave her forever? She thought it the bitterest of all to part as they had done before, with anger; but any parting must be agony where she had loved so well. As he lay sleeping, he never knew what tears of midnight were plashing upon his face. He could not see how her little heart was bleeding as it throbbed. Yet she went right on, though sometimes the tears blinded her, till she could not see her needle; but the consciousness that this love and labor had made her life more sanctified was, in some sort, compensation.

One Sunday she rose before Ralph, and thinking that she was unobserved, stole out of the hotel and up the Boulevard. He followed her, suspiciously. She crossed the Place de la Sorbonne, turned the transept of the Pantheon, and entered the old church of St. Etienne du Mont.

It was early mass. The tapers which have been burning five hundred years glistened upon the tomb of the holy St. Genevieve. Here and there old women and girls were kneeling in the chapels, whispering their sins into the ears of invisible priests. And beneath the delicate tracery of screen and staircase, and the gloriously-painted windows, and the image of Jesus crucified looking down upon all, some groups of poor people were murmuring their prayers and making the sign of the cross.

Ralph entered by a door in the choir. He saw Suzette stand pallidly beside the holy water, and when she had touched it with the tips of her fingers, and made the usual rites, she staggered, as if in shame, to a remote chair, and kneeling down covered her face with her missal. Now and then the organ boomed out. The censers were swung aloft, dispensing their perfumes, and all the people made obeisance. Ralph did not know what it all meant. He only saw his little girl penitent and in prayer, and he knew that she was carrying her sin and his to the feet of the Eternal Mercy.

He feigned sleep in the same way each Sunday succeeding, and she disappeared as before. After a while she spoke of her family, and wondered if her father would forgive her. She would not have forgiven him three months ago, but was quite humble now.

She sent her photograph to the old man, and a letter came back, the first she had received for two years.

She felt unwilling, also, to receive further gifts or support from Ralph. If I were his wife, she said, it might be well, but since it is not so, I must not be dependent.

Foolish Suzette again! She did not know that men love best where they most protect. The wife who comes with a dower may climb as high as her husband's pocket, but seldom lies snugly at his heart. Her changed conduct did not draw him closer to her. He felt uneasy and unworthy. He missed the artfulness which had been so winning. He had jealousies no longer to keep his passion quick, for he could not doubt her devotion. There was nothing to lack in Suzette, and that was a fault. She had become modest, docile, truthful, grave. A noble man might have appreciated her the better. Ralph Flare was a representative man, and he did not.

His friends in America thought his copy from Rembrandt wonderful. Their flattery made his ambition glow and flame. His mother, whose woman's instinct divined the cause of his delay in Paris, sent him a pleading letter to go southward; and thus reprimanded, praised, rewarded, what was he to do?

He resolved to leave France—and without Suzette!

He had not courage to tell her that the separation was final. He spoke of an excursion merely, and took but a handful of baggage. She had doubts that were like deaths to her; but she believed him, and after a feverish night went with him in the morning to the train. He was to write every day.

Would she take money?

"No."

But she might have unexpected wants—sickness, accident, charity?

"If so," she said trustfully, "would not her boy come back?"

He had just time to buy his ticket and gain the platform. He folded her in his arms, and exchanged one long, sobbing kiss. It seemed to Ralph Flare that the sound of that kiss was like a spell—the breaking of the pleasantest link in his life—the passing from sinfulness to a baser selfishness—the stamp and seal upon his bargain with ambition, whereby for the long future he was sold to the sorrow of avarice and the deceitfulness of fame.

There was a sharp whistle from the locomotive—who invented that whistle to pierce so many bosoms at parting?—the cars moved one by one till the last, in which he was seated, sprang forward with a jerk; and though she was quite blind, he saw her handkerchief waving till all had vanished, and he would have given the world to have shed one tear.

He has gone on into the free country, and to-night he will sleep under the shadow of the mountains.

She has turned back into the dark city, and she will not sleep at all in her far-up chamber.

It is only one heart crushed, and thousands that deserve more sympathy beat out every day. We only notice this one because it shall lie bleeding, and get no sympathy at all.