thoughts swept over me as a tempest sweeps over the young tree whose roots are not firm in the soil, whose writhing and wrestling are impotent to defend it from certain destruction.  There was no one I loved especially, no one I cared for anxiously, to relieve the bitter thoughts which centred in myself alone.  Monsieur awoke as I was sitting thus, in ineffectual effort to compose myself.  Seeing me sitting near him, still dressed, the door open, and the light burning, he inquired what was the matter.  I had something below requiring his attention, I said, and, taking up the lamp, ushered him down-stairs.  My chaotic thoughts were beginning to settle themselves,—­to form a nucleus about the first circumstance that thrust itself definitely before them.  That poor wretch waiting below,—­that forsaken, abject, dishonored wife,—­I would confront him with her, and charge him with his guilt.  Opening the saloon-door, I stepped in before him.  The lamp which I had left upon the stand was out, and the slender thread of light which fell from the one in my hand, sweeping across the gloom, rested upon the deserted sofa.  The saloon was empty; no trace, no sign could be discovered of any human being.  The hush, the solemnity of night brooded over the place.  Monsieur mockingly, but unsteadily, inquired what child’s game I was playing,—­he was too tired to be fooled with.  He spoke hotly and quickly, as he never had spoken to me before,—­like one who has long been ill at ease, and deems a slight circumstance portentous.

So I turned upon him, with all the bitterness in my heart rising to my tongue.  I told him the story.  I charged him with the guilt.  He listened in silence; marble-like he stood with folded arms, and heard the conclusion of the whole matter.  When I was silent, he strode up to me, and, stooping, peered into my face steadily.  His teeth were clenched, his eyes shot fire; otherwise he was calm, quite composed.  He said, quietly,—­

“Would you blame me for making an angel out of an idiot?”

Monsieur’s philosophy was too subtile for me.  GUILTY seemed a coarse word to apply to so fine a nature.

He denied having attempted to injure his wife in any way.

“Women are all fools,” he said; “they are all alike,—­go just as they are led, and do just as they are taught.  They cannot think for themselves.  They have no ideas of justice but just what the law furnishes them with.  It was silly to complain; it argued a narrow mind to condemn merely because the laws condemn.  In that case all should be acquitted whom the laws acquit,—­did we ever do this?  Would his darling Jacques, happy, angelic, condemn his parent for releasing him from the drudgery of life?  Was it not better to play on a golden harp than to be a confectioner?  Were not all men, in fact, more or less slayers of their brothers?  Was I not myself guilty in attributing to Madame a deed in my eyes worthy of death, and of which she was innocent?  It was only those whose