rce impelled him to follow
them; and before long, from an open doorway, in which he prudently
concealed himself, he saw them look round to ascertain whether they were
observed, and then slink, first the wife and afterwards the husband,
into the dark passage of La Rouche's house. For a moment Mathieu
lingered in his hiding-place, quivering, full of dread and horror; and
when at last he turned his steps homeward it was with a heavy heart
indeed.

The weeks went by, the winter ran its course, and March had come round,
when the memory of all that the young fellow had heard and seen that
day--things which he had vainly striven to forget--was revived in the
most startling fashion. One morning at eight o'clock Morange abruptly
called at the little pavilion in the Rue de la Federation, accompanied
by his daughter Reine. The cashier was livid, haggard, distracted, and
as soon as Reine had joined Mathieu's children, and could not hear what
he said, he implored the young man to come with him. In a gasp he told
the dreadful truth--Valerie was dying. Her daughter believed her to
be in the country, but that was a mere fib devised to quiet the girl.
Valerie was elsewhere, in Paris, and he, Morange, had a cab waiting
below, but lacked the strength to go back to her alone, so poignant was
his grief, so great his dread.

Mathieu was expecting a happy event that very day, and he at first told
the cashier that he could not possibly go with him; but when he had
informed Marianne that he believed that something dreadful had happened
to the Moranges, she bravely bade him render all assistance. And then
the two men drove, as Mathieu had anticipated, to the Rue du Rocher, and
there found the hapless Valerie, not dying, but dead, and white, and icy
cold. Ah! the desperate, tearless grief of the husband, who fell upon
his knees at the bedside, benumbed, annihilated, as if he also felt
death's heavy hand upon him.

For a moment, indeed, the young man anticipated exposure and scandal.
But when he hinted this to La Rouche she faintly smiled. She had friends
on many sides, it seemed. She had already reported Valerie's death at
the municipal office, and the doctor, who would be sent to certify the
demise, would simply ascribe it to natural causes. Such was the usual
practice!

Then Mathieu bethought himself of leading Morange away; but the other,
still plunged in painful stupor, did not heed him.

"No, no, my friend, I pray you, say nothing," he