"I am enchanted to think that I was of some slight service to you,
madame," he said; "but I fear you will find this quarter of Paris
very dull."

She did not take any notice of this remark until Gustave had repeated it,
and then she spoke as if suddenly awakened from a trance.

"Dull?" she said. "No, I have not found it dull. I do not care for
gaiety."

After this M. Lenoble felt that he could say no more. The lady relapsed
into her waking trance. The dust-clouds in the silent street seemed more
interesting to her than M. Lenoble of Beaubocage. He lingered a few
minutes in the neighbourhood of her chair, thoughtfully observant of the
delicate profile, the pale clear tints of a complexion that had lost its
bloom but not its purity, the settled sadness of the perfect mouth, the
dreamy pensiveness of the dark-grey eye, and then was fain to retire.

After this, the English widow lady spent many evenings in Madame
Magnotte's salon. The old Frenchwoman gossipped and wondered about
her; but the most speculative could fashion no story from a page so
blank as this joyless existence. Even slander could scarcely assail
a creature so unobtrusive as the English boarder. The elderly ladies
shrugged their shoulders and pursed up their lips with solemn
significance. There must needs be something--a secret, a mystery, sorrow,
or wrong-doing--somewhere; but of Madame Meynell herself no one could
suspect any harm.

Gustave Lenoble heard little of this gossip about the stranger, but she
filled his thoughts nevertheless. The vision of her face came between him