m head to foot, with a little
air of disdain.

"I forget," she said icily, "that you ever did me any wrong."

"And I can't," said he; "I wish to heaven I could. You beheld me
to-night in the process of trying--an unedifying sight for Madame la
Comtesse de Verneuil."

"An unedifying sight for anybody," said Joanna.

He bowed his head. Something pathetic in his attitude touched her. She
was a tender-hearted woman. Her hand caught his sleeve.

"Gaston, why have you come down to this? You of all men?"

"Because I am the one poor fool of all poor fools who takes life
seriously."

Joanna sighed. "I can't understand you."

"Is there any necessity?"

"You belong to a time when one wanted to understand everything. Now
nothing much matters. But curiously in your case the desire has
returned."

"You understood me well enough to be sure that when you wanted me I
would be at your service."

"I don't know," she said. "It was a desperate resort to save my
husband's reason. Oh, come," she cried, moving to the chairs by the
fire, "let us sit and talk for five minutes. The other times you came
and went and we scarcely spoke a word. Besides," with a forced laugh,
"it would not have been _convenable_. Now Mr. Asticot is here as
chaperon. It doesn't seem like real life, does it, that you and I should
be here? It is like some grotesque dream in which all sorts of
incoherences are mixed up together. Don't you at least find it
interesting?"

"As interesting as toothache," replied Paragot.

"If it is pain for you to talk to me, Gaston, I will not detain you,"
said Joanna, rising from her chair.

"Forgive me," said he; "I suppose my manners have gone with the rest.
You may help me to recover them if you allow me to talk to you."

He passed his hand wearily over his face, which during the last minute
or two had been overspread by a queer pallor. He looked ghastly.

"Tell me," said he, "why you come to that boozing-ken of a place? A
note would reach me and I would obey."

She explained that there was no time for letter-writing. The Comte's
attacks came on suddenly at night. To soothe him it was necessary to
find the chief actor in the absurd comedy at once, at any cost to her
reputation. Besides, what did it matter? The only person who knew of her
escapade was the coachman, an old family servant of the Comte, as
discreet as death.

"How long have these attacks been going on?" asked my master.

Joanna poured out her story