iss might
recommend you to God.

Then I dressed her as she had asked me to do. I went to find a priest at
Saint Roch, I burned two candles for her, and I prayed in the church for
an hour.

I gave the money she left to the poor.

I do not know much about religion, but I think that God will know that
my tears were genuine, my prayers fervent, my alms-giving sincere, and
that he will have pity on her who, dying young and beautiful, has only
had me to close her eyes and put her in her shroud.

February 22.

The burial took place to-day. Many of Marguerite's friends came to the
church. Some of them wept with sincerity. When the funeral started on
the way to Montmartre only two men followed it: the Comte de G., who
came from London on purpose, and the duke, who was supported by two
footmen.

I write you these details from her house, in the midst of my tears and
under the lamp which burns sadly beside a dinner which I can not touch,
as you can imagine, but which Nanine has got for me, for I have eaten
nothing for twenty-four hours.

My life can not retain these sad impressions for long, for my life is
not my own any more than Marguerite's was hers; that is why I give you
all these details on the very spot where they occurred, in the fear, if
a long time elapsed between them and your return, that I might not be
able to give them to you with all their melancholy exactitude.

Chapter 27

"You have read it?" said Armand, when I had finished the manuscript.

"I understand what you must have suffered, my friend, if all that I read
is true."

"My father confirmed it in a letter."

We talked for some time over the sad destiny which had been
accomplished, and I went home to rest a little.

Armand, still sad, but a little relieved by the narration of his story,
soon recovered, and we went together to pay a visit to Prudence and to
Julie Duprat.

Prudence had become bankrupt. She told us that Marguerite was the cause
of it; that during her illness she had lent her a lot of money in the
form of promissory notes, which she could not pay, Marguerite having
died without having returned her the money, and without having given her
a receipt with which she could present herself as a creditor.

By the help of this fable, which Mme. Duvernoy repeated everywhere in
order to account for her money difficulties, she extracted a note for a
thousand francs from Armand, who did not believe it, but who pretended
to, out of respec