oulevards to-day."

Two or three times a year her husband took her to the theatre. These
were events the remembrance of which never grew dim; they provided
subjects of conversation for long afterward.

Sometimes three months afterward she would suddenly burst into laughter,
and exclaim:

"Do you remember that actor dressed up as a general, who crowed like a
cock?"

Her friends were limited to two families related to her own. She spoke
of them as "the Martinets" and "the Michelins."

Her husband lived as he pleased, coming home when it suited him
--sometimes not until dawn--alleging business, but not putting himself
out overmuch to account for his movements, well aware that no suspicion
would ever enter his wife's guileless soul.

But one morning she received an anonymous letter.

She was thunderstruck--too simple-minded to understand the infamy of
unsigned information and to despise the letter, the writer of which
declared himself inspired by interest in her happiness, hatred of evil,
and love of truth.

This missive told her that her husband had had for two years past, a
sweetheart, a young widow named Madame Rosset, with whom he spent all
his evenings.

Bertha knew neither how to dissemble her grief nor how to spy on her
husband. When he came in for lunch she threw the letter down before him,
burst into tears, and fled to her room.

He had time to take in the situation and to prepare his reply. He
knocked at his wife's door. She opened it at once, but dared not look at
him. He smiled, sat down, drew her to his knee, and in a tone of light
raillery began:

"My dear child, as a matter of fact, I have a friend named Madame
Rosset, whom I have known for the last ten years, and of whom I have a
very high opinion. I may add that I know scores of other people whose
names I have never mentioned to you, seeing that you do not care for
society, or fresh acquaintances, or functions of any sort. But, to make
short work of such vile accusations as this, I want you to put on your
things after lunch, and we'll go together and call on this lady, who
will very soon become a friend of yours, too, I am quite sure."

She embraced her husband warmly, and, moved by that feminine spirit of
curiosity which will not be lulled once it is aroused, consented to go
and see this unknown widow, of whom she was, in spite of everything,
just the least bit jealous. She felt instinctively that to know a danger
is to be already armed aga