picion, not even to mention the robbery. On that agreement only, the poor, cruel boy will consent to remain among his friends."
"But this inhibition," said the Doctor, "this embargo—it cannot possibly apply to me?"
"To all of us," Anastasie assured him.
"My cherished one," Desprez protested, "you must have misunderstood. It cannot apply to me. He would naturally come to me."
"Henri," she said, "it does; I swear to you it does."
"This is a painful, a very painful circumstance," the Doctor said, looking a little black. "I cannot affect, Anastasie, to be anything but justly wounded. I feel this, I feel it, my wife, acutely."
"I knew you would," she said. "But if you had seen his distress! We must make allowances, we must sacrifice our feelings."
"I trust, my dear, you have never found me averse to sacrifices," returned the Doctor very stiffly.
"And you will let me go and tell him that you have agreed? It will be like your noble nature," she cried.
So it would, he perceived—it would be like his noble nature! Up jumped his spirits, triumphant at the thought. "Go, darling," he said nobly, "reassure him. The subject is buried; more—I make an effort, I have accustomed my will to these exertions—and it is forgotten."
A little after, but still with swollen eyes and looking mortally sheepish, Jean-Marie reappeared and went ostentatiously about his business. He was the
