“‘Well, she left me a message for you.’

“‘What was it?’

“‘A—­a—­well, it was what you might call a confession.’

“‘Ha—­and what was it about?’

“’It was—­it was—­I’d rather, all the same, tell you nothing about it—­but I must—­I must.  Well, it’s this—­it wasn’t consumption she died of at all.  It was grief—­well, that’s the long and short of it.  As soon as she came to live here after we were married, she grew thin; she changed so that you wouldn’t know her, M’sieu le Baron.  She was just as I was before I married her, but it was just the opposite, just the opposite.

“’I sent for the doctor.  He said it was her liver that was affected—­he said it was what he called a “hepatic” complaint—­I don’t know these big words, M’sieu le Baron.  Then I bought medicine for her, heaps on heaps of bottles that cost about three hundred francs.  But she’d take none of them; she wouldn’t have them; she said:  “It’s no use, my poor Jean; it wouldn’t do me any good.”  I saw well that she had some hidden trouble; and then I found her one time crying, and I didn’t know what to do, no, I didn’t know what to do.  I bought her caps, and dresses, and hair oil, and earrings.  Nothing did her any good.  And I saw that she was going to die.  And so one night at the end of November, one snowy night, after she had been in bed the whole day, she told me to send for the cure.  So I went for him.  As soon as he came—­’

“‘Jean,’ she said, ’I am going to make a confession to you.  I owe it to you, Jean.  I have never been false to you, never! never, before or after you married me.  M’sieu le Cure is there, and can tell you so; he knows my soul.  Well, listen, Jean.  If I am dying, it is because I was not able to console myself for leaving the chateau, because I was too fond of the young Baron Monsieur Rene, too fond of him, mind you, Jean, there was no harm in it!  This is the thing that’s killing me.  When I could see him no more I felt that I should die.  If I could only have seen him, I might have lived, only seen him, nothing more.  I wish you’d tell him some day, by and by, when I am no longer here.  You will tell him, swear you, will, Jean—­swear it—­in the presence of M’sieu le Cure!  It will console me to know that he will know it one day, that this was the cause of my death!  Swear it!’

“’Well, I gave her my promise, M’sieu It Baron, and on the faith of an honest man I have kept my word.’

“And then he ceased speaking, his eyes filling with tears.

“Good God! my dear boy, you can’t form any idea of the emotion that filled me when I heard this poor devil, whose wife I had killed without suspecting it, telling me this story on that wet night in this very kitchen.

“I exclaimed:  ‘Ah! my poor Jean! my poor Jean!’

“He murmured:  ’Well, that’s all, M’sieu le Baron.  I could not help it, one way or the other—­and now it’s all over!’

“I caught his hand across the table, and I began to weep.