. He opened it, turned pale as
death, and, rising from the table, said to his wife in a constrained
voice:

"Wait for me. I must leave you a moment. I shall be back in ten minutes.
Don't go away on any account."

And he hurried to his room to get his hat.

Bertha waited for him, a prey to fresh anxiety. But, docile in
everything, she would not go back to her friend till he returned.

At length, as he did not reappear, it occurred to her to visit his room
and see if he had taken his gloves. This would show whether or not he
had had a call to make.

She saw them at the first glance. Beside them lay a crumpled paper,
evidently thrown down in haste.

She recognized it at once as the note George had received.

And a burning temptation, the first that had ever assailed her urged her
to read it and discover the cause of her husband's abrupt departure. Her
rebellious conscience protester' but a devouring and fearful curiosity
prevailed. She seized the paper, smoothed it out, recognized the
tremulous, penciled writing as Julie's, and read:

"Come alone and kiss me, my poor dear. I am dying."

At first she did not understand, the idea of Julie's death being her
uppermost thought. But all at once the true meaning of what she read
burst in a flash upon her; this penciled note threw a lurid light
upon her whole existence, revealed the whole infamous truth, all the
treachery and perfidy of which she had been the victim. She understood
the long years of deceit, the way in which she had been made their
puppet. She saw them again, sitting side by side in the evening, reading
by lamplight out of the same book, glancing at each other at the end of
each page.

And her poor, indignant, suffering, bleeding heart was cast into the
depths of a despair which knew no bounds.

Footsteps drew near; she fled, and shut herself in her own room.

Presently her husband called her:

"Come quickly! Madame Rosset is dying."

Bertha appeared at her door, and with trembling lips replied:

"Go back to her alone; she does not need me."

He looked at her stupidly, dazed with grief, and repeated:

"Come at once! She's dying, I tell you!"

Bertha answered:

"You would rather it were I."

Then at last he understood, and returned alone to the dying woman's
bedside.

He mourned her openly, shamelessly, indifferent to the sorrow of the
wife who no longer spoke to him, no longer looked at him; who passed her
life in solitude, hedged round