"To any extent, sir."

"But the sale will cover it?"

"And more too."

"Who will get what remains over?"

"Her family."

"She had a family?"

"It seems so."

"Thanks."

The attendant, reassured as to my intentions, touched his hat,
and I went out.

"Poor girl!" I said to myself as I returned home; "she must have
had a sad death, for, in her world, one has friends only when one
is perfectly well." And in spite of myself I began to feel
melancholy over the fate of Marguerite Gautier.

It will seem absurd to many people, but I have an unbounded
sympathy for women of this kind, and I do not think it necessary
to apologize for such sympathy.

One day, as I was going to the Prefecture for a passport, I saw