her inexplicable grief. Clementine dried her eyes, looked prettier than
ever, and sighed fit to break her heart, without knowing why.

"Beast that I am!" muttered Leon, tearing his hair. "On the day when I
see her again after three years' absence, I can think of nothing more
soul-inspiring than showing her mummies!" He launched a kick at the
triple coffin of the Colonel, saying: "I wish the devil had the
confounded Colonel!"

"No!" cried Clementine with redoubled energy and emotion. "Do not curse
him, Monsieur Leon! He has suffered so much! Ah! poor, poor unfortunate
man!"

Mlle. Sambucco felt a little ashamed. She made excuses for her niece,
and declared that never, since her tenderest childhood, had she
manifested such extreme sensitiveness. M. and Mme. Renault, who had seen
her grow up; Doctor Martout who had held the sinecure of physician to
her; the architect, the notary, in a word, everybody present was plunged
into a state of absolute stupefaction. Clementine was no sensitive
plant. She was not even a romantic school girl. Her youth had not been
nourished by Anne Radcliffe, she did not trouble herself about ghosts,
and she would go through the house very tranquilly at ten o'clock at
night without a candle. When her mother died, some months before Leon's
departure, she did not wish to have any one share with her the sad
satisfaction of watching and praying in the death-chamber.

"This will teach us," said the aunt, "how to stay up after ten o'clock.
What! It is midnight, all to quarter of an hour! Come, my child; you
will get better fast enough after you get to bed."

Clementine arose submissively, but at the moment of leaving the
laboratory she retraced her steps, and with a caprice more inexplicable
than her grief, she absolutely wished to see the mummy of the colonel
again. Her aunt scolded in vain; in spite of the remarks of Mlle.
Sambucco and all the persons present, she reopened the walnut box,
kneeled down beside the mummy and kissed it on the forehead.

"Poor man!" said she, rising, "How cold he is! Monsieur Leon, promise me
that if he is dead you will have him laid in consecrated ground!"

"As you please, Mademoiselle. I had intended to send him to the
anthropological museum, with my father's permission; but you know that
we can refuse you nothing."

They did not separate as gaily, by a good deal, as they had met. M.
Renault and his son escorted Mlle. Sambucco and her niece to their door,
and met