But, one Sunday, having gone to take a walk in the Champs Elysees to refresh herself from the labors of the week, she suddenly perceived a woman who was leading a child.  It was Mme. Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming.

Mme. Loisel felt moved.  Was she going to speak to her?  Yes, certainly.  And now that she had paid, she was going to tell her all about it.  Why not?

She went up.

“Good day, Jeanne.”

The other, astonished to be familiarly addressed by this plain good-wife, did not recognize her at all, and stammered: 

“But—­madame!—­I do not know—­You must have mistaken.”

“No.  I am Mathilde Loisel.”

Her friend uttered a cry.

“Oh, my poor Mathilde!  How you are changed!”

“Yes, I have had days hard enough, since I have seen you, days wretched enough—­and that because of you!”

“Of me!  How so?”

“Do you remember that diamond necklace which you lent me to wear at the ministerial ball?”

“Yes.  Well?”

“Well, I lost it.”

“What do you mean?  You brought it back.”

“I brought you back another just like it.  And for this we have been ten years paying.  You can understand that it was not easy for us, us who had nothing.  At last it is ended, and I am very glad.”

Mme. Forestier had stopped.

“You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?”

“Yes.  You never noticed it, then!  They were very like.”

And she smiled with a joy which was proud and naive at once.

Mme. Forestier, strongly moved, took her two hands.

“Oh, my poor Mathilde!  Why, my necklace was paste.  It was worth at most five hundred francs!”

The Man with the Pale Eyes

Monsieur Pierre Agenor De Vargnes, the Examining Magistrate, was the exact opposite of a practical joker.  He was dignity, staidness, correctness personified.  As a sedate man, he was quite incapable of being guilty, even in his dreams, of anything resembling a practical joke, however remotely.  I know nobody to whom he could be compared, unless it be the present president of the French Republic.  I think it is useless to carry the analogy any further, and having said thus much, it will be easily understood that a cold shiver passed through me when Monsieur Pierre Agenor de Vargnes did me the honor of sending a lady to await on me.

At about eight o’clock, one morning last winter, as he was leaving the house to go to the Palais de Justice, his footman handed him a card, on which was printed: 

Doctor James Ferdinand, Member of the Academy of Medicine, Port-au-Prince, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

At the bottom of the card there was written in pencil: 

    From Lady Frogere.