between him and the little maítre; for that polite gentleman's house was almost directly opposite to that of Madam Dupley. During the slow weeks of his convalescence the shaded garden-walks and airy corridors had given him a pleasant retreat; and now that he no longer needed such, habit and the nameless attraction stronger than habit, led him as constantly as ever to seek the tempered air and quiet precinct.
The subject of his conversations with M. Maillefert was far more frequently the widow and her daughter than comported with the prudence which had forbidden his calling, as Beman had requested. His friend needed little prompting on the theme; and had De Cheville been in daily intercourse with the household he could not have been better informed of every circumstance surrounding them.
Among all these, nothing disquieted him so much, and yet gave him so much unconscious pleasure, as the fact that, since her father's death Marie had not once seen her promised husband! As day after day and week after week passed by, and the indignant Monsieur still repeated that the absence was not yet broken, the impulse to seek her and offer a more faithful heart, which he had formed on first hearing of the young man's neglect, gained strength, and had now almost become a settled purpose. He still hesitated, however; and his resolution was but half-formed more than a month after his health was fully restored.
One afternoon toward the end of August, the friends were sitting on the eastern corridor, sheltered by vines and flowers from the glare of the summer day, and enjoying that most unalloyed of luxuries, a genuine Habana cigar, in a cool and balmy atmosphere. They had been speaking of Marie Lefrette, and the Monsieur was wondering, in his peculiar mosaic of English and French, how she could tamely and even cheerfully endure a neglect which had grown marked and offensive. He had, indeed, just come to a conclusion which made him start from his chair, and walk hastily from one end of the corridor to the other, as if the revelation of his own logic had been a startling communication.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, folding his arms and nodding his head, as if
