"A fine, good girl. I was very sorry to hear of her death."

"Had she not a lover called Armand Duval?"

"A fellow who squandered on her the little money he had, and then had to leave her. They say he was quite wild about it."

"They always say she was very much in love with him, but as girls like that are in love. It is no good to ask them for what they can not give."

"I don't know. We knew him very little. He was with Marguerite for five or six months in the country. When she came back, he had gone."

"And you have never seen him since?"

I, too, had not seen Armand again. I was beginning to ask myself if, when he had come to see me, the recent news of Marguerite's death had not exaggerated his former love, and consequently his sorrow, and I said to myself that perhaps he had already forgotten the dead woman, and along with her his promise to come and see me again. This supposition would have seemed probable enough in most instances, but in Armand's despair there had been an accent of real sincerity, and, going from one extreme to another, I imagined that distress had brought on an illness, and that my not seeing him was explained by the fact that he was ill, perhaps dead.

I was interested in the young man in spite of myself. Perhaps there was some selfishness in this interest; perhaps I guessed at some pathetic love story under all this sorrow; perhaps my desire to know all about it had much to do with the anxiety which Armand's silence caused me. Since M. Duval did not return to see me, I decided to go and see him. A pretext was not difficult to find; unluckily I did not know his address, and no one among those whom I questioned could give it to me.

(Editor：hot)