“Why!  Is that you?  I should never have known you again!”

He was very nearly starting off again immediately.  He even telegraphed orders to Havre to get the steam-yacht ready for sea again directly, when he heard that Marie-Anne had married again.

He saw her in the distance, at the Theatre Francais one Tuesday, and when he noticed how pretty, how fair, how desirable she was, and looking so melancholy, with all the appearance of an unhappy soul that regrets something, his determination grew weaker, and he delayed his departure from week to week, and waited, without knowing why, until, at last, worn out with the struggle, watching her wherever she went, more in love with her than he had ever been before, he wrote her long, mad, ardent letters in which his passion overflowed like a stream of lava.

He altered his handwriting, as he remembered her restless brain and her many whims.  He sent her the flowers which he knew she liked best, and told her that she was his life, that he was dying of waiting for her, of longing for her, for her, his idol.

At last, very much puzzled and surprised, guessing—­who knows?—­from the instinctive beating of her heart, and her general emotion, that it must be he this time, he whose soul she had tortured with such cold cruelty, and knowing that she could make amends for the past and bring back their former love, she replied to him, and granted him the meeting that he asked for.  She fell into his arms, and they both sobbed with joy and ecstasy.  Their kisses were those which lips only give when they have lost each other and found each other again at last, when they meet and exhaust themselves in each other’s looks, thirsting for tenderness, love and enjoyment.

* * * * *

Last week Count de Baudemont carried off Marie-Anne quietly and coolly, just like one resumes possession of one’s house on returning from a journey, and drives out the intruders.  And when Maitre Garrulier was told of this unheard-of scandal, he rubbed his hands—­his long, delicate hands of a sensual prelate—­and exclaimed: 

“That is absolutely logical, and I should like to be in their place.”

THE MAN WITH THE DOGS

His wife, even when talking to him, always called him Monsieur Bistaud, but in all the country round, within a radius of ten leagues in France and Belgium, he was known as cet homme aux chiens[5].  It was not a very valuable reputation, however, and “That man with the dogs” became a sort of pariah.

[Footnote 5:  That man with the dogs.]