herself under the wing of Madame Magnotte, who was disposed to be kind to
this helpless stranger. To Gustave the young English widow seemed like a
ghost at that crowded board. He looked at her every now and then from his
distant seat, and saw her always with the same hopeless far-away look in
her sad eyes. He himself was silent and _distrait_.

"Of what dost thou dream, my droll one?" said his nearest neighbour.
"Thou art positively insupportable."

M. Lenoble could not become vivacious or entertaining at the behest of
his fellow-student. The consciousness of that strange pale face haunted
and oppressed him. He hoped to have a few minutes' talk with the English
lady after dinner, but she disappeared before the removal of those
recondite preparations which in the Pension Magnotte went by the generic
name of "dessert."

For more than a week she appeared thus at the dinner-table, eating very
little, speaking not at all, except such monosyllabic replies as the
hostess now and then extorted from her pale lips. A creature at once so
beautiful and so profoundly sad became an object of interest to others
besides Gustave; but in no breast was the sympathy which her sadness and
beauty excited so poignant as in his. Her face haunted him. The familiar
pleasures and amusements became distasteful to him. He spent his evenings
at home in the dismal salon, and was content to listen to the chatter of
the old women, the little music-mistress's dreary sonatas, the monotonous
roll of wheels on the distant quay--anything rather than the hackneyed
round of student-life that had once been agreeable to him. He did not
fail to write his weekly letter to Cydalise; but, for some reason or
other, he refrained from any allusion to the English stranger, although
it was his custom to relate all his adventures for the amusement of the