account in his name, at the Credit Lyonnais, depositing 50,000 francs. And now Mlle. Desparges was spending this! For the three days following the Countess was unable to see anybody. She had attack after attack of hysterics. She had lain awake all night and sobbed all day. Two of her servants, weary of this futile exhibition of temperament, had given notice. Then, one day, she had flung herself prone on the floor, desolate and despairing. How long had she remained there? She could not now be certain, but she recalled that she had not shed a tear. Her grief was too deep for tears, but the idea of suicide had raced into her brain, and she considered the possible means of suicide at hand. On her dressing-table stood a little vial of bichloride of mercury tablets, the drawer of her escritoire harboured a loaded revolver with a handle of black and gold Toledo work, and there was always the Seine. She had remembered that some one had told her that potassium cyanide, with its faint odour of peach-blossoms, was an excellent, sudden, and painless method of terminating one's existence. But she had failed to kill herself; she had not been equal to this demand on her courage. Instead, she had tried the alternative of going back into the great world, searching consolation, sympathy, without naming the cause of her grief, but after she had observed the enchanted expression in one or two pair of eyes, which made no effort to conceal their satisfaction at the sight of an
