aptivating, but an ignoble, bony structure. As Flore caught sight of
the visitors, she drew across her breast a bit of muslin which might
have been a fragment of a window-curtain, for it was edged with rust as
from a rod. The young men saw two chairs, a broken bureau on which was
a tallow-candle stuck into a potato, a few dishes on the floor, and an
earthen fire-pot in a corner of the chimney, in which there was no fire;
this was all the furniture of the room. Bixiou noticed the remaining
sheets of writing-paper, brought from some neighboring grocery for the
letter which the two women had doubtless concocted together. The word
"disgusting" is a positive to which no superlative exists, and we must
therefore use it to convey the impression caused by this sight. When the
dying woman saw Joseph approaching her, two great tears rolled down her
cheeks.

"She can still weep!" whispered Bixiou. "A strange sight,--tears from
dominos! It is like the miracle of Moses."

"How burnt up!" cried Joseph.

"In the fires of repentance," said Flore. "I cannot get a priest; I have
nothing, not even a crucifix, to help me see God. Ah, monsieur!" she
cried, raising her arms, that were like two pieces of carved wood, "I
am a guilty woman; but God never punished any one as he has punished me!
Philippe killed Max, who advised me to do dreadful things, and now he
has killed me. God uses him as a scourge!"

"Leave me alone with her," said Bianchon, "and let me find out if the
disease is curable."

"If you cure her, Philippe Bridau will die of rage," said Desroches. "I
am going to draw up a statement of the condition in which we have found
his wife. He has not brought her before the courts as an adulteress, and
therefore her rights as a wife are intact: he shall have the shame of a
suit. But first, we must remove the Comtesse de Brambourg to the private
hospital of Doctor Dubois, in the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis. She
will be well cared for there. Then I will summon the count for the
restoration of the conjugal home."

"Bravo, Desroches!" cried Bixiou. "What a pleasure to do so much good
that will make some people feel so badly!"

Ten minutes later, Bianchon came down and joined them.

"I am going straight to Despleins," he said. "He can save the woman by
an operation. Ah! he will take good care of the case, for her abuse
of liquor has developed a magnificent disease which was thought to be
lost."

"Wag of a mangler! Isn't there but on