d, having no friends in town, was good enough to admit me to her
parlor now and then and even to allow me to accompany her to the theater
when her husband was away on one of his mysterious visits. I never liked
Mr. L'Homme-dieu, but I did like her. She was so different from me, and,
when I first knew her, so gay and so full of conversation. But after
awhile she changed and was either feverishly cheerful or morbidly sad,
so that my visits caused me more pain than pleasure. The reason for
these changes in her was patent to everybody. Though her husband was a
handsome man, he was as unprincipled as he was unfortunate. He gambled.
This she once admitted to me, and while at long intervals he met with
some luck he more often returned dispirited and with that hungry,
ravening look you expect to see in a wolf cheated of its prey.

"I used to be afraid he would strike her after some one of these
disappointments, but I do not think he ever did. She had a determined
character of her own, and there have been times when I have thought he
was as much afraid of her as she was of him. I became sure of this
after one night. Mrs. L'Hommedieu and myself were having a little supper
together in the front parlor you have so lately occupied. It was a
very ordinary supper, for the L'Hommedieus' purse had run low, and Mrs.
L'Hommedieu was not the woman to spend much at any time on her eating.
It was palatable, however, and had been cooked by us both together, and
I was enjoying it and would have enjoyed it more if Mrs. L'Hommedieu had
had more appetite. But she ate scarcely anything and seemed very anxious
and unhappy, though she laughed now and then with sudden gusts of mirth
too hysterical to be real. It was not late, and yet we were both very
much surprised when there came a knock at the door, followed by the
entrance of a visitor.

"Mrs. L'Hommedieu, who is always _la grande dame_, rose without apparent
embarrassment to meet the gentleman who entered, though I knew she could
not help but feel keenly the niggardly appearance of the board she left
with such grace. The stranger--he was certainly a stranger; this I could
see by the formality of her manner--was a gentleman of urbane bearing
and a general air of prosperity.

"I remember every word that passed.

"'My name is Lafarge,' said he. 'I am, or rather have been, under great
obligations to your husband, and I have come to discharge my debt. Is he
at home?'

"Mrs. L'Hommedieu's eye, wh