Scarcely had she glanced through some lines than her blood turned to ice in her veins and a chill pierced her heart. She uttered such a groan that Olia awoke with a start. As though she could not trust her eyes, poor Helene read the article a second time. Yes, they were there, those cursed lines! a thing more horrible than murder. She had not yet taken in the awfulness of it. A fit of frenzy seized her brain. She seized the newspaper and brandished it at the sacred pictures, saying, "There! There!"
"A tragedy has just disturbed our quiet provincial town. Two young girls of good society fell in love with the same young man; one was twenty-five, the other nineteen. There was an explanation between the two sisters: the elder did not wish to stand in the way of the happiness of the younger; she went away for good, telling her friends that she intended to enter a convent, and would never return. This is where the affair took a dramatic turn. The young man loved the girl who had gone away; he only waited for her return to declare himself. When he heard of the step she had taken, he applied to the authorities to be exchanged into another regiment, and went off without informing any one. This morning the younger of the two sisters was found dead in her room, killed by a pistol-shot. On the table was a short note:
"'Where are you? Forgive me! I could not, I ought not, I dared not live any longer.
"No! It is impossible! It is false! I am delirious!" exclaimed poor Helene, crushing the paper in her clenched hand. She went near the window in order to read again the fatal lines. They were indeed there; they did not disappear! Nothing took their place. They turned from black to red; they blazed like fire; they burned her heart!
"Where are you? Forgive me! I could not, I ought not, I dared not live any longer.
Helene seized her black head-dress and bursting into wild laughter rushed towards the door. She herself had fastened it, but she imagined that some one was holding it from without, and shook it, sobbing and laughing at the same time. Then without hesitation she turned the key, went out, passed Olia who, pale as a sheet, gazed at her without comprehension and ran down the stairs uttering unintelligible sounds.