has forced to sell herself."

The room was small, but very clean and tidy, and that confirmed him in
his conjecture, as he was curious to verify its truth, he went into the
three rooms which opened into one another. The bedroom, came first;
next there came a kind of a drawing-room, and then a dining-room, which
evidently served as a kitchen, for a Dutch tiled stove stood in the
middle of it, on which a stew was simmering, but the smell of carbolic
acid was even stronger in that room. He remarked on it, and added with a
laugh:

"Do you put it with your soup?"

And as he said this, he laid hold of the handle of the door which led
into the next room, for he wanted to see everything, even that nook,
which was apparently a store cupboard, but the woman seized him by the
arm, and pulled him violently back.

"No, no," she said, almost in a whisper, and in a hoarse and suppliant
voice, "no, dear, not there, not there, you must not go in there."

"Why?" he said, for his wish to go in had only become stronger.

"Because if you go in there, you will have no inclination to remain with
me, and I so want you to stay. If you only knew!"

"Well, what?" And with a violent movement, he opened the glazed door,
when the smell of carbolic acid seemed almost to strike him in the face,
but what he saw, made him recoil still more, for on a small iron
bedstead, lay the dead body of a woman fantastically illuminated by a
single wax candle, and in horror he turned to make his escape.

"Stop, my dear," the woman sobbed; and clinging to him, she told him
amidst a flood of tears, that her friend had died two days previously,
and that there was no money to bury her. "Because," she said, "you can
understand that I want it to be a respectable funeral, we were so very
fond of each other! Stop here, my dear, do stop. I only want ten francs
more. Don't go away."

They had gone back into the bedroom, and she was pushing him towards
the bed:

"No," he said, "let me go. I will give you the ten francs, but I will
not stay here; I cannot."

He took his purse out of his pocket, extracted a ten-franc piece, put it
on the table, and then went to the door; but when he had reached it, a
thought suddenly struck him, as if somebody were reasoning with him,
without his knowledge.

"Why lose these ten francs? Why not profit by this woman's good
intentions. She certainly did her business bravely, and if I had not
known about the matter, I should certainly