"One of the last times she was here," Mme. Annoni went on, as if any further detail were needed to fix the dark dye of the tragedy, "she showed us your postcard from Italy. If you only knew how proud she was. I read it to her."
Incongruous new thought—Marthe couldn't even read!
"And only last week her old vicomte came back," added Mme. Annoni. "He was struck all of a heap when I told him." She shook her head with a great sigh. "Ah, she was no ordinary girl, that one!"
Looking with cold eyes upon Mme. Annoni's display of compassion, Grover recalled occasions on which the lady's relentlessness had fastened itself on Marthe as indiscriminately as it had singled out many another poor wretch who was temporarily unable to pay for his sinister cheer. On the whole Marthe had been a good customer, one of the best; she had been virtually a part of the goodwill of the business, and had attracted clients of distinction, including a romantic old vicomte; moreover she had had the grace to make a spectacular ending, thereby providing rich food for the plebeian imagination of her outcast friends. Mme. Annoni might well sigh.
He learned that Marthe had passed through the first violent stage of her malady. The English Miss, a dull but faithful soul whose acquaintance Grover had made on one of the Friday nights that she had reserved for Marthe, had offered to be responsible for the patient,
