e end, leave long intervals between
their visits, and finally would not come to see her at all, but would
turn away from her, as if from a hospital where incurable patients were
dying.

Nevertheless, the older the count grew, the more the supplies in the
small country house diminished, and the more painful and harder existence
became. If a morsel of bread was left uneaten on the table, if an
unexpected dish was served up at table, if she put a piece of ribbon into
her hair, he used to heap violent, spiteful reproaches on her, torrents
of rage which defile the mouth, and violent threats like those of a
madman, who is tormented by some fixed idea. Monsieur d'Etchegorry had
dismissed the servant and engaged a char-woman, whom he intended to pay,
merely by small sums on account, and he used to go to market with a
basket on his arm.

He locked up every morsel of food, used to count the lumps of sugar and
charcoal, and bolted himself in all day long in a room that was larger
than the rest, and which for a long time had served as a drawing-room.
At times he would be rather more gentle, as if he were troubled by vague
thoughts, and used to say to his daughter, in an agonized voice, and
trembling all over: "You will never ask me for any accounts, I
say?... You will never demand your mother's fortune?"

She always gave him the required promise, did not worry him with any
questions, nor give vent to any complaints, and thinking of her cousins,
who would have good dowries, who were growing up happily and peacefully,
amidst careful and affectionate surroundings and beautiful old furniture,
who were certain to be loved, and to get married some day, and she asked
herself why fate was so cruel to some, and so kind to others, and what
she had done to deserve such disfavor.

Marie-des-Anges d'Etchegorry, without being absolutely pretty, possessed
all the charm of her age, and everybody liked her. She was as tall and
slim as a lily, with beautiful, fine, soft fair hair, eyes of a dark,
undecided color, which reminded one of those springs in the depths of the
forests, in which a ray of the sun is but rarely reflected--mirrors which
changed now to violet, then to the color of leaves, but most frequently
of a velvety blackness--and her whole being exhaled a freshness of
childhood, and something that could not be described, but which was
pleasant, wholesome and frank.

She lived on through a long course of years, growing old, faithful to