ome element of ruth or of hope; her manner suggested a secret, like
the expression of devout souls who pray in excess, or of a girl who has
killed her child and for ever hears its last cry. Nevertheless, she was
simple and clumsy in her ways; her vacant smile had nothing criminal
in it, and you would have pronounced her innocent only from seeing the
large red and blue checked kerchief that covered her stalwart bust,
tucked into the tight-laced bodice of a lilac- and white-striped gown.
'No,' said I to myself, 'I will not quit Vendome without knowing the
whole history of la Grande Breteche. To achieve this end, I will make
love to Rosalie if it proves necessary.'

"'Rosalie!' said I one evening.

"'Your servant, sir?'

"'You are not married?' She started a little.

"'Oh! there is no lack of men if ever I take a fancy to be miserable!'
she replied, laughing. She got over her agitation at once; for every
woman, from the highest lady to the inn-servant inclusive, has a native
presence of mind.

"'Yes; you are fresh and good-looking enough never to lack lovers! But
tell me, Rosalie, why did you become an inn-servant on leaving Madame de
Merret? Did she not leave you some little annuity?'

"'Oh yes, sir. But my place here is the best in all the town of
Vendome.'

"This reply was such an one as judges and attorneys call evasive.
Rosalie, as it seemed to me, held in this romantic affair the place of
the middle square of the chess-board: she was at the very centre of the
interest and of the truth; she appeared to me to be tied into the knot
of it. It was not a case for ordinary love-making; this girl contained
the last chapter of a romance, and from that moment all my attentions
were devoted to Rosalie. By dint of studying the girl, I observed in
her, as in every woman whom we make our ruling thought, a variety of
good qualities; she was clean and neat; she was handsome, I need not
say; she soon was possessed of every charm that desire can lend to a
woman in whatever rank of life. A fortnight after the notary's visit,
one evening, or rather one morning, in the small hours, I said to
Rosalie:

"'Come, tell me all you know about Madame de Merret.'

"'Oh!' she said, 'I will tell you; but keep the secret carefully.'

"'All right, my child; I will keep all your secrets with a thief's
honor, which is the most loyal known.'

"'If it is all the same to you,' said she, 'I would rather it should be
with your own.'

"Thereu