rule-of-three sum stands between the first and third, I have only to
relate it in as few words as may be. I shall therefore be brief.

"The room at la Grande Breteche in which Madame de Merret slept was on
the ground floor; a little cupboard in the wall, about four feet deep,
served her to hang her dresses in. Three months before the evening of
which I have to relate the events, Madame de Merret had been seriously
ailing, so much so that her husband had left her to herself, and had
his own bedroom on the first floor. By one of those accidents which it
is impossible to foresee, he came in that evening two hours later than
usual from the club, where he went to read the papers and talk
politics with the residents in the neighborhood. His wife supposed him
to have come in, to be in bed and asleep. But the invasion of France
had been the subject of a very animated discussion; the game of
billiards had waxed vehement; he had lost forty francs, an enormous
sum at Vendome, where everybody is thrifty, and where social habits
are restrained within the bounds of a simplicity worthy of all praise,
and the foundation perhaps of a form of true happiness which no
Parisian would care for.

"For some time past Monsieur de Merret had been satisfied to ask
Rosalie whether his wife was in bed; on the girl's replying always in
the affirmative, he at once went to his own room, with the good faith
that comes of habit and confidence. But this evening, on coming in, he
took it into his head to go to see Madame de Merret, to tell her of
his ill-luck, and perhaps to find consolation. During dinner he had
observed that his wife was very becomingly dressed; he reflected as he
came home from the club that his wife was certainly much better, that
convalescence had improved her beauty, discovering it, as husbands
discover everything, a little too late. Instead of calling Rosalie,