cited voice, while my wife, pale and trembling, looked at me, saying nothing. I had broken out when she had endeavored to speak, and now her silence increased my anger. Beside myself, I seized the flowerpot, first cause of the dispute, and started for the window to throw it into the street, when a cry from Geneviève stopped me. The poor woman was near the cradle of the baby, whom I had waked up; she pressed one hand against her breast and her other was extended toward

me.

"Don't break it, Peter Henry," she said to me, in a voice which I shall never forget; "it is the flower of our anniversary!"

I held the gillyflower between my hands, hesitating about what I should do with it. I recalled, then, that every year at this season Geneviève had celebrated the date of our marriage by the purchase of one of these flowers, which my mother had cultivated at the BoisRiant. At this thought I felt a shaking within me; all my anger suddenly left me, it burst like a fountain from my heart. Geneviève immediately ran toward me and threw herself with the child into my arms.

When all was pardoned and forgotten we sat down to the supper-table. What had happened had hindered my wife from preparing anything; I would not let her go out to get what we lacked. We supped gayly upon bread and radishes, the gillyflower in the midst of the table perfuming our feast.

CHAPTER XI

FRIEND MAURICET'S TROUBLE

E had obtained a judgment which recognized our right and assured a part of our debt upon the security of the contractor, but the formalities had not yet been all fulfilled. Geneviève and I were put to all sorts of expedients, living by chance and never having in the cupboard bread for the next day. My days were divided between some passing work, running between the parties interested in the lawsuit, and visits to the palace of justice. I have thought since that it would have been wiser to have surrendered all and begun afresh, like the child newly born; but I was allured by these few thousand francs which they showed to me always in perspective, and I could not dismiss my hope.

Months thus passed. I had lost the habit of regular occupation, my life was deranged. Instead of making my way with the workers I found myself stopped among those poor wretches who eat their dry bread to the fumes of a roast on the spit which is constantly promised them and which always turns. I employed the present to keep in the line to the gate of the future.

On top of it all the child fell very ill. I was forced

to go to my business and leave all the cares to Geneviève; but at the first moment of liberty I hastily returned. The malady did not decrease; on the contrary I heard the wails of the poor creature and its stifled breathing. When its mother or I leaned over its bed it extended its little hands and looked at us with a supplicating air; it had the appearance of asking mercy. Accustomed to receive everything from us, it believed that we could give it health! Our voices, our caresses, encouraged it a moment; then the suffering seized it again; it repulsed us; it seemed to reproach us; it twisted its little limbs with cries which cut us to the heart. At first I had combated the mother's fears, but at length I felt incapable of saying anything; I stood there with crossed arms, displeased at her despair, which augmented my own, and not having the strength to give her any hope. The doctor also kept his counsel; he came to the child's cradle, made a hasty examination, ordered what he wished, and then disappeared without a word of consolation; one would have said it was an architect visiting mortar and stones. Sometimes I would have stopped him, grasping him by the arms and crying to him to speak and take away from us the illusion or the care; but he was too quick for me; that which was for us the source of so much anguish was for him only his day's employ.

O, the sad hours, my God! passed near this little bed! What long and cheerless nights! How I have desired at spells the power to hasten the time, thus reaching at once the depth of my wretchedness! I have since recalled having read that such an experience was still one

of God's kindnesses. In making us feel so much anguish he renders us less sensitive to the last stroke; the unhappiness of the waiting makes it desirable; our thought runs to meet it, and when the blow strikes us we accept it as a solace.

After an illness of fifteen days the child died. I was prepared for it, but it seems that Geneviève was not. Mothers never give up those whom they have brought into the world; they cannot believe in the possibility of being separated from them. The days passed by; nothing consoled my poor wife. I found her seated before the empty cradle or handling the little garments of the dead child, giving to each one a tear and a kiss. I had reasoned with her and chided, she listening to me patiently without raising her head, like a poor heart whose spring is broken. This despondency finally infected me. I relaxed in my turn; I took no interest in anything; I passed entire hours standing before the window drumming upon the glass and gazing out abstractedly. We both became benumbed by our grief.

We had not seen Mauricet in the two years that he had lived in Burgundy; they had only told me that the old master-workman was engaged in great enterprises. Two or three times I had had the idea of informing him of my embarrassment and of asking him for a stroke on the shoulder; I hardly know what pride restrained Now that I supposed him among the great financiers I was less at ease with him; I feared that he would suspect me of wishing to trade on our old friendship.

me.

We had, then, the seeming of being a little forgotten, when, one evening, I saw the new contractor arrive, not

in a carriage, as I should have expected, but on foot and covered with a traveller's blouse over his other clothes. He descended from the diligence and came to us asking dinner.

At the first glance I saw a change in him. He talked as freely and as loudly as ever, he laughed at every turn, was restless, and asked more questions than he waited. replies; but all this movement and all this talk appeared forced; his gayety was feverish. He scarcely spoke to us of the death of our child; when I wished to speak of my affairs he interrupted me to talk of his own. He brought notes and memoranda which he explained to me, begging me at the same time to put them in order. Although his manners had a little repelled me I did as he desired. During this work Mauricet paced about the chamber, his hands in his pockets, and softly whistling. From time to time he stopped before the sheet of paper which I had covered with figures as if he had wished to divine the result; then he resumed his whistling and his walking. It took much time to complete the calculation; when I had finished I made it known to the master-workman; the liabilities were almost double the assets. At the announcement of this result Mauricet could not restrain an exclamation:

"Are you certain of the thing?" he demanded in an accent which seemed to me altered.

I explained to him the reasons which must necessarily bring this result. The first was the numerous loans and the accumulations of interest, with which he had seemed not to trouble himself. In the absence of written accounts, he had evidently deceived himself.