restaurant on the boulevard. I had come with that intention, and yet, here we were talking over painful things instead of going out. The silence of the wintry night was absolute around that old Hôtel Sainte-Euverte, the right wing of which my friend inhabited alone. "Yes, very strange," he repeated; "and it is one of those coincidences which make me believe in occult causes that I should hear of this death to-day, Christmas Eve, and"—here he looked at the clock—"at this particular hour. What should you think," he continued, "if I were to tell you that at certain moments a sort of hallucination overcomes me and seems to place the responsibility for Lucien's conduct on me. The most inexplicable of all chances mixed me up in a very mysterious, almost fantastic manner (that was nevertheless very direct) with the first great fault of my cousin's life; I mean that dishonesty at cards in the Desaix Club at Clermont, in consequence of which he was forced to send in his resignation and leave the town. You know the rest, and how he has gone on since then."
"Yes, I remember it all," I replied. "Your uncle's hair turned white in a very short time after it happened. When we met on the avenue that winter you used to make me avoid him, for fear I should look into his eyes and see how sad they were. He always left his house the back way, by the street that runs near the wall
