“Monsieur,” said Jacquet, touching him on the arm, “the person I spoke of is Madame Jules Desmarets, the wife of the broker of that name.”

“Ah, I know!” he replied, looking at Jacquet.  “Wasn’t it a funeral with thirteen mourning coaches, and only one mourner in the twelve first?  It was so droll we all noticed it—­”

“Monsieur, take care, Monsieur Desmarets is with me; he might hear you, and what you say is not seemly.”

“I beg pardon, monsieur! you are quite right.  Excuse me, I took you for heirs.  Monsieur,” he continued, after consulting a plan of the cemetery, “Madame Jules is in the rue Marechal Lefebre, alley No. 4, between Mademoiselle Raucourt, of the Comedie-Francaise, and Monsieur Moreau-Malvin, a butcher, for whom a handsome tomb in white marble has been ordered, which will be one of the finest in the cemetery—­”

“Monsieur,” said Jacquet, interrupting him, “that does not help us.”

“True,” said the official, looking round him.  “Jean,” he cried, to a man whom he saw at a little distance, “conduct these gentlemen to the grave of Madame Jules Desmarets, the broker’s wife.  You know where it is,—­near to Mademoiselle Raucourt, the tomb where there’s a bust.”

The two friends followed the guide; but they did not reach the steep path which leads to the upper part of the cemetery without having to pass through a score of proposals and requests, made, with honied softness, by the touts of marble-workers, iron-founders, and monumental sculptors.

“If monsieur would like to order something, we would do it on the most reasonable terms.”

Jacquet was fortunate enough to be able to spare his friend the hearing of these proposals so agonizing to bleeding hearts; and presently they reached the resting-place.  When Jules beheld the earth so recently dug, into which the masons had stuck stakes to mark the place for the stone posts required to support the iron railing, he turned, and leaned upon Jacquet’s shoulder, raising himself now and again to cast long glances at the clay mound where he was forced to leave the remains of the being in and by whom he still lived.

“How miserably she lies there!” he said.

“But she is not there,” said Jacquet, “she is in your memory.  Come, let us go; let us leave this odious cemetery, where the dead are adorned like women for a ball.”

“Suppose we take her away?”

“Can it be done?”

“All things can be done!” cried Jules.  “So, I shall lie there,” he added, after a pause.  “There is room enough.”