autiful, still charming.

Mme. Loisel felt moved. Was she going to speak to her? Yes, certainly.
And now that she had paid, she was going to tell her all about it. Why
not?

She went up.

"Good day, Jeanne."

The other, astonished to be familiarly addressed by this plain
good-wife, did not recognize her at all, and stammered:

"But--madame!--I do not know--You must have mistaken."

"No. I am Mathilde Loisel."

Her friend uttered a cry.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed!"

"Yes, I have had days hard enough, since I have seen you, days wretched
enough--and that because of you!"

"Of me! How so?"

"Do you remember that diamond necklace which you lent me to wear at the
ministerial ball?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Well, I lost it."

"What do you mean? You brought it back."

"I brought you back another just like it. And for this we have been ten
years paying. You can understand that it was not easy for us, us who
had nothing. At last it is ended, and I am very glad."

Mme. Forestier had stopped.

"You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?"

"Yes. You never noticed it, then! They were very like."

And she smiled with a joy which was proud and naive at once.

Mme. Forestier, strongly moved, took her two hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most
five hundred francs!"

_The Man with the Pale Eyes_

Monsieur Pierre Agenor De Vargnes, the Examining Magistrate, was the
exact opposite of a practical joker. He was dignity, staidness,
correctness personified. As a sedate man, he was quite incapable of
being guilty, even in his dreams, of anything resembling a practical
joke, however remotely. I know nobody to whom he could be compared,
unless it be the present president of the French Republic. I think it
is useless to carry the analogy any further, and having said thus much,
it will be easily understood that a cold shiver passed through me when
Monsieur Pierre Agenor de Vargnes did me the honor of sending a lady to
await on me.

At about eight o'clock, one morning last winter, as he was leaving the
house to go to the _Palais de Justice_, his footman handed him a card,
on which was printed:

DOCTOR JAMES FERDINAND,
_Member of the Academy of Medicine,
Port-au-Prince,
Chevalier of the Legion of Honor._

At the bottom of the card there was written in pencil:

_From Lady Frogere._

Monsieur de Vargnes knew the lady