“That is what the war has done to me,” she said again, picking up the photograph of the girl in the evening frock with a little curl on each cheek.

“ C’est triste, Madame! ”

“ Oui, c’est triste, Monsieur! ”

But it was not war that had caused her tragedy, except that it had unloosened the roots of her family life. Guy de Maupassant would have given just such an ending to his story.