u were right, but it was
not pleasant to me. I hated you then, though I had never spoken to you
nor seen you; not because I wanted him, but because you interfered.
He said once to me that you had told the truth in that. But--and then,
monsieur?"

"Then continue to efface yourself. Continue to be the woman in the
Morgue."

"But others know."

"Yes, Henri Durien knows and M. Barre suspects."

"So, you see."

"But Henri Durien is a prisoner for life; he cannot hear of the marriage
unless you tell him. M. Barre is a gentleman: he is my friend; his
memory will be dead like you."

"For M. Barre, well! But the other--Henri. How do you know that he is
here for life? Men get pardoned, men get free, men--get free, I tell
you."

Shorland noticed the interrupted word. He remembered it afterwards all
too distinctly enough.

"The twenty-sixth, the twenty-sixth," she said.

Then a pause, and afterwards with a sudden sharpness: "Come to me on the
twenty-fifth, and I will give you my reply, M. Shorland."

He still held the portrait in his hand. She stepped forward. "Let me see
it again," she said.

He handed it to her: "You have spoiled a good face, Gabrielle."

"But the eyes are not hurt," she replied; "see how they look at one."
She handed it back.

"Yes, kindly."

"And sadly. As though he still remembered Lucile. Lucile! I have not
been called that name for a long time. It is on my grave-stone, you
know. Ah, perhaps you do not know. You never saw my grave. I have. And
on the tombstone is written this: By Luke to Lucile. And then beneath,
where the grass almost hides it, the line: I have followed my Star to
the last. You do not know what that line means; I will tell you. Once,
when we were first married, he wrote me some verses, and he called them,
'My Star, Lucile.' Here is a verse--ah, why do you not smile, when I
say I will tell you what he wrote? Chut! Women such as I have memories
sometimes. One can admire the Heaven even if one lives in--ah, you know!
Listen." And with a voice that seemed far away and not part of herself
she repeated these lines:

"In my sky of delight there's a beautiful Star;
'Tis the sun and the moon of my days;
And the doors of its glory are ever ajar,
And I live in the glow of its rays.
'Tis my winter of joy and my summer of rest,
'Tis my future, my present, my past;
And though storms fill the East and the clouds haunt the West,
I s