II.

NWHEN Lucien Hem saw his last hundred-franc note gripped by the bank-keeper's rake, and rose from the roulette-table, where he had lost the last fragments of his little fortune, collected for this supreme struggle, he felt giddy, and thought he was going to fall.

WHEN Lucien Hem saw his last hundred-franc note gripped by the bank-keeper's rake, and rose from the roulette-table, where he had lost the last fragments of his little fortune, collected for this supreme struggle, he felt giddy, and thought he was going to fall.

With dizzy head and tottering legs, he went and threw himself down upon the broad leathern settee surrounding the play-table.

"HE FELT GIDDY."

For some minutes he gazed vacantly on the clandestine gambling-house in which he had squandered the best years of his youth; recognised the ravaged faces of the gamblers, crudely lit by the three large shaded lamps; listened to the light jingle of gold on the cloth-covered table; felt that he was ruined, lost; recollected that he had at home the pair of regulation pistols which his father, General Hem, then a simple captain, had used so well in the attack of Zaatcha; then, overcome by fatigue, he sank into a profound sleep.

When he arose, with a clammy mouth, he saw by the clock that he had slept for barely half an hour, and felt an imperious need for breathing the night air. The clock-hands marked a quarter before midnight. While rising and stretching his arms, Lucien remembered that it was Christmas Eve, and, by an ironic trick of memory, he saw himself a little child, putting its shoes into the chimney before going to bed.

At that moment old Dronski—a pillar of the gaming house, the classic Pole, wearing the threadbare hooded woollen cloak, ornamented all over with grease stains—approached Lucien, and muttered a few words in his grizzled beard: "Lend me a five-franc piece, monsieur. It's now two days since I have stirred out of the club, and for two days the 'seventeen' has never turned up. Laugh at me, if you like, but I'll suffer my hand to be cut off if that number does not turn up on the stroke of midnight."

Lucien Hem shrugged his shoulders. He had not even enough in his pocket to meet this tax, which the frequenters of the place called "The Pole's hundred sous." He passed into the antechamber, took his hat and fur coat, and descended the stairs with feverish rapidity.

Since four o'clock, when Lucien had shut himself up in the gaming-house, snow had fallen heavily, and the street—a street in thecentre of Paris, very narrow, and built with high houses on either side—was completely white.

In the calm sky, blue-black, the cold stars glittered.

The ruined gambler shuddered under his furs, and walked away, his mind still teeming with thoughts of despair, and more than ever turning to the remembrance of the box of pistols which awaited him in one of his drawers; but after moving forward a few steps, he stopped suddenly before a heart-wringing sight.

On a stone bench, placed according to old custom near the monumental door of a mansion, a little girl of six or seven years of age, dressed in a ragged black frock, was sitting in the snow. She was sleeping, in spite of the cruel cold, in an attitude of frightful fatigue and exhaustion: her poor little head and tiny shoulder pressed as if they had sunk into an angle of the wall, and reposing on the icy stone. One of her wooden shoes had fallen from her foot, which hung helplessly and lugubriously before her.

With a mechanical gesture, Lucien put his hand to his waistcoat pocket, but a moment afterwards he recollected that he had not been able to find even a forgotten piece of twenty-sous, and had been obliged to leave the club without giving the customary "tip" to the club attendant; yet, moved by an instinctive feeling of pity, he approached the little girl, and might, perhaps, have taken her in his arms and given her a night's lodging, when in the wooden shoe which had slipped from her foot he saw something glitter.

He stooped: it was a gold coin.

Some charitable person, doubtless some lady, had passed by, had seen on this Christmas night the little wooden shoe lying in front of the sleeping child, and, recalling the touching legend, had placed there, with a secret hand, a magnificent offering, so that this poor abandoned one might believe in presents made for the infant Saviour, and preserve, in spite of her misfortune, some confidence and some hope in the goodness of Providence.

A gold piece! It was several days of rest and riches for the beggar, and Lucien was on the point of waking her to tell her this, when he heard near his ear, as in an hallucination, a voice—the voice of the Pole, with its coarse drawling accent, almost whispering: "It's now two days since I stirred out of the club, and for two days the 'seventeen' has never turned up; I'll suffer my hand to be cut off, if that number does not turn up on the stroke of midnight."

"HE STOLE THE GOLD PIECE FROM THE FALLEN SHOE!"

Then this young man of three-and-twenty, descended from a race of honest men, who bore a proud military name, and who had never swerved from the path of honour, conceived a frightful idea; he was seized with a mad, hysterical, monstrous desire. After glancing on all sides, to make sure that he was alone in the deserted street, he bent his knee, and carefully out-stretching his trembling hand, he stole the gold piece from the fallen shoe!

Hurrying then, with all his speed, he returned to the gambling-house, scaled thestairs two and three at a stride, and entering the accursed play-room as the first stroke of midnight was sounding, placed the piece of gold on the green cloth, and cried:—

"I stake on the seventeen!"

The seventeen won.

With a turn of the hand Lucien pushed the thirty-six louis on to the "red."

The "red" won.

He left the seventy-two louis on the same colour; the "red" again won.

"AND STILL HE WON."

Twice he "doubled"—three times—always with the same success. He had now before him a pile of gold and notes, and began to scatter stakes all over the board; the "dozen," the "column," the "number," all the combinations succeeded with him. His luck was unheard of, supernatural. It might have been imagined that the little ivory ball dancing in the roulette was magnetised, fascinated by the eyes of this player and obedient to him. In a dozen stakes he had recovered the few wretched thousand-franc notes, his last resources, which he had lost at the beginning of the evening.

Now, punting with two or three hundred louis at a time, and aided by his fantastic vein of luck, he was on the way to regaining, and more besides, the hereditary capital he had squandered in so few years, and reconstituting his fortune.

In his eagerness to return to the gaming-table, he had not taken off his fur coat. Already he had crammed the large pockets with bundles of notes and rouleaux of gold pieces; and, not knowing where to heap his winnings, he now loaded the inner and exterior pockets of his frock-coat, the pockets of his waistcoat and trousers, his cigar-case, his handkerchief—everything that could be made to hold his money.

And still he played, and still he won, like a madman, like a drunken man! And he threw handfuls of louis on to the "picture," at hazard, with a gesture of certainty and disdain!

Only something like a red-hot iron was in his heart, and he thought of nothing but of the little mendicant sleeping in the snow whom he had robbed.

"Is she still at the same spot! Surely she must be still there! Presently—yes, when one o'clock strikes—I swear it! I will quit this place. I will take her sleeping in my arms and carry her to my home; I will put her into my warm bed; I will bring her up, give her a dowry, love her as if she were my own daughter, care for her always, always!"

But the clock struck one, and then a quarter, and then a half, and then three-quarters.

And Lucien was still seated at the infernal table.

At length, one minute before two o'clock, the keeper of the bank rose abruptly, and said in a loud voice:

"The bank is broken, gentlemen—enough for to-day."

With a bound Lucien was on his feet. Roughly pushing aside the gamblers who surrounded him and regarded him with envious admiration, he hurried away quickly, sprang down the stairs and ran allthe way to the stone bench. In the distance, by the light of a lamp, he saw the little girl.

"God be praised!" he said; "she is still there."

He approached her, he took her hands.

"Oh! how cold she is, poor little one!"

He took her under the arms and raised her, so that he might carry her; her head fell back without her awaking.

"How soundly children of her age sleep!"

He pressed her against his bosom to warm her, and, seized by a vague inquietude, and, with a view to rousing her out of this heavy slumber, he kissed her eyelids.

Then it was that he perceived with terror that these eyelids were half open, showing half the eyeballs—glassy, lightless, motionless. Upon his brain flashed a horrible suspicion. He placed his mouth close to that of the little girl; no breath came from it.

While with the gold piece which he had stolen from this mendicant, Lucien had won a fortune at the gaming table, the homeless child had died—died of cold!

Seized by the throat by the most frightful of agonies, Lucien tried to utter a cry, and, in the effort which he made, awoke from his nightmare on the club settee, on which he had gone to sleep a little before midnight, and where the attendant who had quitted the house last had left him out of charity.

The misty dawn of a December morning was greying the window-panes.

Lucien went out into the street, pledged his watch, took a bath, breakfasted, and then went to the recruiting-office, and signed an engagement as volunteer in the 1st Regiment of Chasseurs d'Afrique.

At the present time Lucien Hem is a lieutenant; he has only his pay to live upon, but he contrives to make it suffice, being a very steady officer and never touching a card. It appears even that he has found the means of saving, for the other day, at Algiers, one of his comrades who was following him, at a few paces distant, in one of the hilly streets of the Kasba, saw him give something in charity to a little Spanish girl sleeping in a doorway, and had the indiscretion to see what it was that Lucien had given to the child.

Great was his surprise at the poor lieutenant's generosity.

Lucien Hem had put into the hand of the poor child apiece of gold!

MMRS. ESDAILE, of the Lindens, Birchespool, was a lady of quite remarkable scientific attainments. As honorary secretary of the ladies' branch of the local Eclectic Society, she shone with a never-failing brilliance. It was even whispered that on the occasion of the delivery of Professor Tomlinson's suggestive lecture "On the Perigenesis of the Plastidule" she was the only woman in the room who could follow the lecturer even as far as the end of his title. In the seclusion of the Lindens she supported Darwin, laughed at Mivart, doubted Haeckel, and shook her head at Weissman, with a familiarity which made her the admiration of the University professors and the terror of the few students who ventured to cross her learned but hospitable threshold. Mrs. Esdaile had, of course, detractors. It is the privilege of exceptional merit. There were bitter feminine whispers as to the cramming from encyclopædias and text-books which preceded each learned meeting, and as to the care with which in her own house the conversation was artfully confined to those particular channels with which the hostess was familiar. Tales there were, too, of brilliant speeches written out in some masculine hand, which had been committed to memory by the ambitious lady, and had afterwards flashed out as extempore elucidations of some dark, half-explored corner of modern science. It was even said that these little blocks of information got jumbled up occasionally in their bearer's mind, so that after an entomological lecture she would burst into a geological harangue, orvice versâ, to the great confusion of her audience. So ran the gossip of the malicious, but those who knew her best were agreed that she was a very charming and clever little person.

MRS. ESDAILE, of the Lindens, Birchespool, was a lady of quite remarkable scientific attainments. As honorary secretary of the ladies' branch of the local Eclectic Society, she shone with a never-failing brilliance. It was even whispered that on the occasion of the delivery of Professor Tomlinson's suggestive lecture "On the Perigenesis of the Plastidule" she was the only woman in the room who could follow the lecturer even as far as the end of his title. In the seclusion of the Lindens she supported Darwin, laughed at Mivart, doubted Haeckel, and shook her head at Weissman, with a familiarity which made her the admiration of the University professors and the terror of the few students who ventured to cross her learned but hospitable threshold. Mrs. Esdaile had, of course, detractors. It is the privilege of exceptional merit. There were bitter feminine whispers as to the cramming from encyclopædias and text-books which preceded each learned meeting, and as to the care with which in her own house the conversation was artfully confined to those particular channels with which the hostess was familiar. Tales there were, too, of brilliant speeches written out in some masculine hand, which had been committed to memory by the ambitious lady, and had afterwards flashed out as extempore elucidations of some dark, half-explored corner of modern science. It was even said that these little blocks of information got jumbled up occasionally in their bearer's mind, so that after an entomological lecture she would burst into a geological harangue, orvice versâ, to the great confusion of her audience. So ran the gossip of the malicious, but those who knew her best were agreed that she was a very charming and clever little person.

"SCIENTIFIC PROOF."

It would have been a strange thing had Mrs. Esdaile not been popular among local scientists, for her pretty house, her charming grounds, and all the hospitality which an income of two thousand a year will admit of, were always at their command. On her pleasant lawns in the summer, and round her drawing-room fire in the winter, there was much high talk of microbes, and leucocytes, and sterilised bacteria, where thin, ascetic materialists from the University upheld the importance of this life against round, comfortable champions of orthodoxy from the Cathedral Close. And in the heat of thrust and parry, when scientific proof ran full tilt against inflexible faith, a word from the clever widow, or an opportune rattle over the keys by her pretty daughter Rose, would bring all back to harmony once more.

Rose Esdaile had just passed her twentieth year, and was looked upon as one of the beauties of Birchespool. Her face was, perhaps, a trifle long for perfect symmetry, but her eyes were fine, her expression kindly, and her complexion beautiful. It was an open secret, too, that she had under her father's will five hundred a year in her own right. With such advantages a far plainer girl than Rose Esdaile might create a stir in the society of a provincial town.

A scientific conversazione in a private house is an onerous thing to organise, yet mother and daughter had not shrunk from the task. On the morning of which I write, they sat together surveyingtheir accomplished labours, with the pleasant feeling that nothing remained to be done save to receive the congratulations of their friends. With the assistance of Rupert, the son of the house, they had assembled from all parts of Birchespool objects of scientific interest, which now adorned the long tables in the drawing-room. Indeed, the full tide of curiosities of every sort which had swelled into the house had overflowed the rooms devoted to the meeting, and had surged down the broad stairs to invade the dining-room and the passage. The whole villa had become a museum. Specimens of the flora and fauna of the Philippine Islands, a ten-foot turtle carapace from the Gallapagos, the os frontis of the Bos montis as shot by Captain Charles Beesly in the Thibetan Himalayas, the bacillus of Koch cultivated on gelatine—these and a thousand other such trophies adorned the tables upon which the two ladies gazed that morning.

"You've really managed it splendidly, ma," said the young lady, craning her neck up to give her mother a congratulatory kiss. "It was so brave of you to undertake it."

"I think that it will do," purred Mrs. Esdaile complacently. "But I do hope that the phonograph will work without a hitch. You know at the last meeting of the British Association I got Professor Standerton to repeat into it his remarks on the life history of the Medusiform Gonophore."

"How funny it seems," exclaimed Rose, glancing at the square box-like apparatus, which stood in the post of honour on the central table, "to think that this wood and metal will begin to speak just like a human being."

"Hardly that, dear. Of course the poor thing can say nothing except what is said to it. You always know exactly what is coming. But I do hope that it will work all right."

"Rupert will see to it when he comes up from the garden. He understands all about them. Oh, ma, I feel so nervous."

Mrs. Esdaile looked anxiously down at her daughter, and passed her hand caressingly over her rich brown hair. "I understand," she said, in her soothing, cooing voice, "I understand."

"He will expect an answer to-night, ma."

"Follow your heart, child. I am sure that I have every confidence in your good sense and discretion. I would not dictate to you upon such a matter."

"You are so good, ma. Of course, as Rupert says, we really know very little of Charles—of Captain Beesly. But then, ma, all that we do know is in his favour."

"Quite so, dear. He is musical, and well-informed, and good-humoured, and certainly extremely handsome. It is clear, too, from what he says, that he has moved in the very highest circles."

"The best in India, ma. He was an intimate friend of the Governor-General's. You heard yourself what he said yesterday about the D'Arcies, and Lady Gwendoline Fairfax, and Lord Montague Grosvenor."

"Well, dear," said Mrs. Esdaile resignedly, "you are old enough to know your own mind. I shall not attempt to dictate to you. I own that my own hopes were set upon Professor Stares."

"Oh, ma, think how dreadfully ugly he is."

"But think of his reputation, dear. Little more than thirty, and a member of the Royal Society."

"I couldn't, ma. I don't think I could, if there was not another man in the world. But, oh, I do feel so nervous; for you can't think how earnest he is. I must give him an answer to-night. But they will be here in an hour. Don't you think that we had better go to our rooms?"

The two ladies had risen, when there came a quick masculine step upon the stairs, and a brisk young fellow, with curly black hair, dashed into the room.

"All ready?" he asked, running his eyes over the lines of relic-strewn tables.

"All ready, dear," answered his mother.

"Oh, I am glad to catch you together," said he, with his hands buried deeply in his trouser pockets, and an uneasy expression on his face. "There's one thing that I wanted to speak to you about. Look here, Rosie; a bit of fun is all very well; but you wouldn't be such a little donkey to think seriously of this fellow Beesly?"

"My dear Rupert, do try to be a little less abrupt," said Mrs. Esdaile, with a deprecating hand outstretched.

"I can't help seeing how they have been thrown together. I don't want to be unkind, Rosie; but I can't stand by and see you wreck your life for a man who has nothing to recommend him but his eyes and his moustache. Do be a sensible girl, Rosie, and have nothing to say to him."

"It is surely a point, Rupert, upon whichI am more fitted to decide than you can be," remarked Mrs. Esdaile, with dignity.

"No, mater, for I have been able to make some inquiries. Young Cheffington, of the Gunners, knew him in India. He says—"

But his sister broke in upon his revelations. "I won't stay here, ma, to hear him slandered behind his back," she cried, with spirit. "He has never said anything that was not kind of you, Rupert, and I don't know why you should attack him so. It is cruel, unbrotherly." With a sweep and a whisk she was at the door, her cheek flushed, her eyes sparkling, her bosom heaving with this little spurt of indignation, while close at her heels walked her mother with soothing words, and an angry glance thrown back over her shoulder. Rupert Esdaile stood with his hands burrowing deeper and deeper into his pockets, and his shoulders rising higher and higher to his ears, feeling intensely guilty, and yet not certain whether he should blame himself for having said too much or for not having said enough.

"I WON'T STAY HERE TO HEAR HIM SLANDERED."

Just in front of him stood the table on which the phonograph, with wires, batteries, and all complete, stood ready for the guests whom it was to amuse. Slowly his hands emerged from his pockets as his eye fell upon the apparatus, and with languid curiosity he completed the connection, and started the machine. A pompous, husky sound, as of a man clearing his throat proceeded from the instrument, and then in high, piping tones, thin but distinct, the commencement of the celebrated scientist's lecture. "Of all the interesting problems," remarked the box, "which are offered to us by recent researches into the lower orders of marine life, there is none to exceed the retrograde metamorphosis which characterises the common barnacle. The differentiation of an amorphous protoplasmic mass—" Here Rupert Esdaile broke the connection again, and the funny littletinkling voice ceased as suddenly as it began.

The young man stood smiling, looking down at this garrulous piece of wood and metal, when suddenly the smile broadened, and a light of mischief danced up into his eyes. He slapped his thigh, and danced round in the ecstasy of one who has stumbled on a brand-new brilliant idea. Very carefully he drew forth the slips of metal which recorded the learned Professor's remarks, and laid them aside for future use. Into the slots he thrust virgin plates, all ready to receive an impression, and then, bearing the phonograph under his arm, he vanished into his own sanctum. Five minutes before the first guests had arrived the machine was back upon the table, and all ready for use.

There could be no question of the success of Mrs. Esdaile's conversazione. From first to last everything went admirably. People stared through microscopes, and linked hands for electric shocks, and marvelled at the Gallapagos turtle, the os frontis of the Bos montis, and all the other curiosities which Mrs. Esdaile had taken such pains to collect. Groups formed and chatted round the various cases. The Dean of Birchespool listened with a protesting lip, while Professor Maunders held forth upon a square of triassic rock, with side-thrusts occasionally at the six days of orthodox creation; a knot of specialists disputed over a stuffed ornithorhynchus in a corner; while Mrs. Esdaile swept from group to group, introducing, congratulating, laughing, with the ready, graceful tact of a clever woman of the world. By the window sat the heavily-moustached Captain Beesly, with the daughter of the house, and they discussed a problem of their own, as old as the triassic rock, and perhaps as little understood.

"But I must really go and help my mother to entertain, Captain Beesly," said Rose at last, with a little movement as if to rise.

"Don't go, Rose. And don't call me Captain Beesly; call me Charles. Do, now!"

"Well, then, Charles."

Call me Charles. Do now.

"How prettily it sounds from your lips! No, now, don't go. I can't bear to be away from you. I had heard of love, Rose; but how strange it seems that I, after spending my life amid all that is sparkling and gay, should only find outnow, in this little provincial town, what love really is!"

"You say so; but it is only a passing fancy."

"No, indeed. I shall never leave you, Rose—never, unless you drive me away from your side. And you would not be so cruel—you would not break my heart?"

He had very plaintive, blue eyes, and there was such a depth of sorrow in them as he spoke that Rose could have wept for sympathy.

"I should be very sorry to cause you grief in any way," she said, in a faltering tone.

"Then promise——"

"No, no; we cannot speak of it just now, and they are collecting round the phonograph. Do come and listen to it. It is so funny. Have you ever heard one?"

"Never."

"It will amuse you immensely. And I am sure that you would never guess what it is going to talk about."

"What then?"

"Oh, I won't tell you. You shall hear. Let us have these chairs by the open door; it is so nice and cool."

The company had formed an expectant circle round the instrument. There was a subdued hush as Rupert Esdaile made the connection, while his mother waved her white hand slowly from left to right to mark the cadence of the sonorous address which was to break upon their ears.

"How about Lucy Araminta Pennyfeather?" cried a squeaky little voice. There was a rustle and a titter among the audience. Rupert glanced across at Captain Beesly. He saw a drooping jaw, two protruding eyes, and a face the colour of cheese.

"WHO WAS IT WHO HID THE ACE?"

"How about little Martha Hovedean of the Kensal Choir Union?" cried the piping voice.

Louder still rose the titters. Mrs. Esdaile stared about her in bewilderment. Rose burst out laughing, and the Captain's jaw drooped lower still, with a tinge of green upon the cheese-like face.

"Who was it who hid the ace in the artillery card-room at Peshawur? Who was it who was broke in consequence? Who was it——?"

"Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Esdaile, "what nonsense is this? The machine is out of order. Stop it, Rupert. These are not the Professor's remarks. But, dear me, where is our friend Captain Beesly gone?"

"I am afraid that he is not very well, ma," said Rose. "He rushed out of the room."

"There can't be much the matter," quoth Rupert. "There he goes, cutting down the avenue as fast as his legs will carry him. I do not think, somehow, that we shall see the Captain again. But I must really apologise. I have put in the wrong slips. These, I fancy, are those which belong to Professor Standerton's lecture."

Rose Esdaile has become Rose Stares now, and her husband is one of the most rising scientists in the provinces. No doubt she is proud of his intellect and of his growing fame, but there are times when she still gives a thought to the blue-eyed Captain, and marvels at the strange and sudden manner in which he deserted her.

From the French of Alfred de Musset.

[Alfred de Musset was born in the middle of old Paris, in the year 1810. Musset is the Byron of the French; but at the age when Byron was playing cricket in the grounds of Harrow, Alfred and his brother Paul were poring day and night over old romances, and dressing themselves up as knights and robbers, to represent the characters of whom they read. At nineteen he began to write, and, unlike Byron, his first book of poems was a complete success. At twenty-three he went to Italy, in the capacity of George Sand's private secretary, fell passionately in love with her, was jilted, and returned home broken-hearted. This, however, did not prevent him from falling in love, and out again, like Byron, at constant intervals throughout his life, and celebrating the event in verses infinitely sweet and bitter. From Louis Philippe, who had been his school-fellow, he received the post of Librarian to the Minister of the Interior, which, however, he lost at the Revolution of 1848. In 1852 he was elected to the French Academy; but, though only forty-two, his health was already breaking. Like Byron, who loved to write at midnight with a glass of gin-and-water at his elbow, Musset used to prime himself with draughts of the still deadlier absinthe. He sank, and died in May, 1857, leaving the greatest name of all French poets except Victor Hugo, and a reputation as a writer of prose stories which may be very fairly estimated by the specimen which follows—the charming little story of "Camille."]

TTHE Chevalier des Arcis was a cavalry officer who, having quitted the service in 1760, while still young, retired to a country house near Mans. Shortly after, he married the daughter of a retired merchant who lived in the neighbourhood, and this marriage appeared for a time to be an exceedingly happy one. Cécile's relatives were worthy folk who, enriched by means of hard work, were now, in their latter years, enjoying a continual Sunday. The Chevalier, weary of the artificial manners of Versailles, entered gladly into their simple pleasures. Cécile had an excellent uncle, named Giraud, who had been a master-bricklayer, but had risen by degrees to the position of architect, and now owned considerable property. The Chevalier's house (which was named Chardonneux) was much to Giraud's taste, and he was there a frequent and ever welcome visitor.

THE Chevalier des Arcis was a cavalry officer who, having quitted the service in 1760, while still young, retired to a country house near Mans. Shortly after, he married the daughter of a retired merchant who lived in the neighbourhood, and this marriage appeared for a time to be an exceedingly happy one. Cécile's relatives were worthy folk who, enriched by means of hard work, were now, in their latter years, enjoying a continual Sunday. The Chevalier, weary of the artificial manners of Versailles, entered gladly into their simple pleasures. Cécile had an excellent uncle, named Giraud, who had been a master-bricklayer, but had risen by degrees to the position of architect, and now owned considerable property. The Chevalier's house (which was named Chardonneux) was much to Giraud's taste, and he was there a frequent and ever welcome visitor.

By and by a lovely little girl was born to the Chevalier and Cécile, and great at first was the jubilation of the parents. But a painful shock was in store for them. They soon made the terrible discovery that their little Camille was deaf, and, consequently, also dumb!

The mother's first thought was of cure, but this hope was reluctantly abandoned; no cure could be found. At the time of which we are writing, there existed a pitiless prejudice against those poor creatures whom we styledeaf mutes. A few noble spirits, it is true, had protested against this barbarity. A Spanish monk of the sixteenth century was the first to devise means of teaching the dumb to speak without words—a thing until then deemed impossible. His example had been followed at different times in Italy, England, and France, by Bonnet, Wallis, Bulwer, and Van Helmont, and a little good had been done here and there. Still, however, even at Paris, deaf mutes were generally regarded as beings set apart, marked with the brand of Divine displeasure. Deprived of speech, the power of thought was denied them, and they inspired more horror than pity.

A dark shadow crept over the happiness of Camille's parents. A sudden, silent estrangement—worse than divorce, crueller than death—grew up between them. For the mother passionately loved her afflicted child, while the Chevalier, despite all the efforts prompted by his kind heart, could not overcome the repugnance with which her affliction affected him.

The mother spoke to her child by signs, and she alone could make herself understood. Every other inmate of the house, even her father, was a stranger to Camille. The mother of Madame des Arcis—a woman of no tact—never ceased to deplore loudly the misfortune that had befallen her daughter and son-in-law. "Better that she had never been born!" she exclaimed one day.

"What would you have done, then, hadIbeen thus?" asked Cécile indignantly.

To Uncle Giraud his great-niece's dumbness seemed no such tremendous misfortune. "I have had," said he, "such a talkative wife that I regard everything else as a less evil. This little woman will never speak or hear bad words, never aggravate the whole household by humming opera airs, will never quarrel, never awake when her husband coughs, or rises early to look after his workmen. She will see clearly, for the deaf have good eyes. She will be pretty and intelligent, and make no noise. Were I young, I would like to marry her; being old, I will adopt her as my daughter whenever you are tired of her."

For a moment the sad parents were cheered by Uncle Giraud's bright talk. But the cloud soon re-descended upon them.

In course of time the little girl grew into a big one. Nature completed successfully, but faithfully, her task. The Chevalier's feelings towards Camille had, unfortunately, undergone no change. Her mother still watched over her tenderly, and never left her, observing anxiously her slightest actions, her every sign of interest in life.

When Camille's young friends were of an age to receive the first instructions of a governess, the poor child began to realise the difference between herself and others. The child of a neighbour had a severe governess. Camille, who was present oneday at a spelling-lesson, regarded her little comrade with surprise, following her efforts with her eyes, seeking, as it were, to aid her, and crying when she was scolded. Especially were the music-lessons puzzling to Camille.

The evening prayers, which the neighbour used regularly with her children, were another enigma for the girl. She knelt with her friends, and joined her hands without knowing wherefore. The Chevalier considered this a profanation; not so his wife. As Camille advanced in age, she became possessed of a passion—as it were by a holy instinct—for the churches which she beheld. "When I was a child I saw not God, I saw only the sky," is the saying of a deaf mute. A religious procession, a coarse, gaudily bedizened image of the Virgin, a choir boy in a shabby surplice, whose voice was all unheard by Camille—who knows what simple means will serve to raise the eyes of a child? And what matters it, so long as the eyes are raised?

Camille waspetite, with a white skin, and long black hair, and graceful movements. She was swift to understand her mother's wishes, prompt to obey them. So much grace and beauty, joined to so much misfortune, were most disturbing to the Chevalier. He would frequently embrace the girl in an excited manner, exclaiming aloud: "I am not yet a wicked man!"

At the end of the garden there was a wooded walk, to which the Chevalier was in the habit of betaking himself after breakfast. From her chamber window Madame des Arcis often watched him wistfully as he walked to and fro beneath the trees. One morning, with palpitating heart, she ventured to join him. She wished to take Camille to a juvenile ball which was to be held that evening at a neighbouring mansion. She longed to observe the effect which her daughter's beauty would produce upon the outside world and upon her husband. She had passed a sleepless night in devising Camille's toilette, and she cherished the sweetest hopes. "It must be," she told herself, "that he will be proud, and the rest jealous of the poor little one! She will say nothing, but she will be the most beautiful!"

The Chevalier welcomed his wife graciously—quite in the manner of Versailles! Their conversation commenced with the exchange of a few insignificant sentences as they walked side by side. Then a silence fell between them, while Madame des Arcis sought fitting words in which to approach her husband on the subject of Camille, and induce him to break his resolution that the child should never see the world. Meanwhile, the Chevalier was also in cogitation. He was the first to speak. He informed his wife that urgent family affairs called him to Holland, and that he ought to start not later than the following morning.

Madame understood his true motive only too easily. The Chevalier was far from contemplating the desertion of his wife, yet felt an irresistible desire, a compelling need of temporary isolation. In almost all true sorrow, man has this craving for solitude—suffering animals have it also.

His wife raised no objection to his project, but fresh grief wrung her heart. Complaining of weariness, she sank upon a seat. There she remained for a long time, lost in sad reverie. She rose at length, put her arm into that of her husband, and they returned together to the house.

"SHE SANK UPON A SEAT."

The poor lady spent the afternoon quietly and prayerfully in her own room. In the evening, towards eight o'clock, she rang her bell, and ordered the horse to be put into the carriage. At the same time she sent word to the Chevalier that she intended going to the ball, and hoped that he would accompany her.

An embroidered robe of white muslin, small shoes of white satin, a necklace of American beads, a coronet of violets—such was the simple costume of Camille, who, when her mother had dressed her, jumped for joy. As Madame was embracing her child with the words, "You are beautiful! you are beautiful!" the Chevalier joined them. He gave his hand to his wife, and the three went to the ball.

As it was Camille's first appearance in public, she naturally excited a great deal of curiosity. The Chevalier suffered visibly. When his friends praised to him the beauty of his daughter, he felt that they intended to console him, and such consolation was not to his taste. Yet he could not wholly suppress some emotion of pride and joy. His feelings were strangely mixed. After having saluted by gestures almost everybody in the room, Camille was now resting by her mother's side. The general admiration grew more enthusiastic. Nothing, in fact, could have been more lovely than the envelope which held thispoor dumb soul. Her figure, her face, her long, curling hair, above all, her eyes of incomparable lustre, surprised everyone. Her wistful looks and graceful gestures, too, were so pathetic. People crowded around Madame des Arcis, asking a thousand questions about Camille; to surprise and a slight coldness succeeded sincere kindliness and sympathy. They had never seen such a charming child; nothing resembled her, for there existed nothing else so charming as she! Camille was a complete success.

"IT WAS CAMILLE'S FIRST APPEARANCE."

Always outwardly calm, Madame des Arcis tasted to-night the most pure and intense pleasure of her life. A smile that was exchanged between her and her husband was well worth many tears.

Presently, as the Chevalier was still gazing at his daughter, a country-dance began, which Camille watched with an earnest attention that had in it something sad. A boy invited her to join. For answer, she shook her head, causing some of the violets to fall out of her coronet. Her mother picked them up, and soon put to rights the coiffure, which was her own handiwork. Then she looked round for her husband, but he was no longer in the room. She inquired if he had left, and whether he had taken the carriage. She was told that he had gone home on foot.

The Chevalier had resolved to leave home without taking leave of his wife. He shrank from all discussion and explanation, and, as he intended to return in a short time, he believed that he should act more wisely in leaving a letter than by making averbal farewell. There wassometruth in his statement of that business affair calling him away, although business was not his first consideration. And now one of his friends had written to hasten his departure. Here was a good excuse. On returning alone to his house (by a much shorter route than that taken by the carriage), he announced his intention to the servants, packed in great haste, sent his light luggage on to the town, mounted his horse, and was gone.

Yet a certain misgiving troubled him, for he knew that his Cécile would be pained by his abrupt departure, although he endeavoured to persuade himself that he did this for her sake no less than for his own. However, he continued on his way.

Meanwhile, Madame des Arcis was returning in the carriage, with her daughter asleep upon her knee. She felt hurt at the Chevalier's rudeness in leaving them to return alone. It seemed such a public slight upon his wife and child! Sad forebodings filled the mother's heart as the carriage jolted slowly over the stones of a newly-made road. "God watches over all," she reflected; "over us as over others. But what shall we do? What will become of my poor child?"

At some distance from Chardonneux there was a ford to be crossed. There had been much rain for nearly a month past, causing the river to overflow its banks. The ferryman refused at first to take the carriage into his boat; he would undertake, he said, to convey the passengers and the horse safely across, but not the vehicle. The lady, anxious to rejoin her husband, would not descend. She ordered the coachman to enter the boat; it was only a transit of a few minutes, which she had made a hundred times.

In mid-stream the boat was forced by the current from its straight course. The boatman asked the coachman's aid in keeping it away from the weir. For there was not far off a mill with a weir, where the violence of the water had formed a sort of cascade. It was clear that if the boat drifted to this spot there would be a terrible accident.

"IN MID-STREAM."

The coachman descended from his seat, and worked with a will. But he had only a pole to work with, the night was dark, a fine rain blinded the men, and soon the noise of the weir announced the most imminent danger. Madame des Arcis, who had remained in the carriage, opened the window in alarm. "Are we then lost?" cried she. At that moment the pole broke. The two men fell into the boat exhausted, and with bruised hands.

The ferryman could swim, but not thecoachman. There was no time to lose. "Père Georgeot," said Madame to the ferryman, calling him by his name, "can you save my daughter and myself?"

"Certainly!" he replied, as if almost insulted by the question.

"What must we do?" inquired Madame des Arcis.

"Place yourself upon my shoulders," replied the ferryman, "and put your arms about my neck. As for the little one, I will hold her in one hand, and swim with the other, and she shall not get drowned. It is but a short distance from here to the potatoes which grow in yonder field."

"And Jean?" asked Madame, meaning the coachman.

"Jean will be all right, I hope. If he holds on at the weir, I will return for him."

Père Georgeot struck out with his double burden, but he had over-estimated his powers. He was no longer young. The shore was farther off, the current stronger than he had thought. He struggled manfully, but was nearly swept away. Then the trunk of a willow, hidden by the water and the darkness, stopped him suddenly with a violent blow upon the forehead. Blood flowed from the wound and obscured his vision.

"Could you save my child if you had only her to convey?" asked the mother.

"I cannot tell, but Ithinkso," said the ferryman.

The mother removed her arms from the man's neck, and let herself slip gently into the water.

When the ferryman had deposited Camille safely onterra firma, the coachman, who had been rescued by a peasant, helped him to search for the body of Madame des Arcis. It was found on the following morning, near the bank.

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