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Treated as an imposter by everybody save a former non-commissioned officer of his regiment, he falls into poverty and wretchedness, and dies in a hospice, whilst his wife continues to live rich and honoured. Jacques Arago and Louis Lurine, who composed the play, altered the denouement.
Lurine had no one to confide in but the woman of stone, and it seemed by her smile that she understood already, and there was no need to tell her, that the inevitable young man had come. The next night he followed her quite across the bridge, and this time Lurine did not walk so quickly.
Why it seemed suspicious Lurine did not know, but she passed an anxious time until she took the basket in her hand and went to meet her lover at the corner of the Rue des Pyramides. His first question was "Have you brought me the things?" "Yes," she answered. "Will you take them here, now?" "Not here, not here," he replied hurriedly, and then asked anxiously, "Did anyone see you take them?"
She caught him by the arm, saying, "Oh, Jean, what is the matter?" He shook her rudely, and shouted at her "Let me go, you fool!" But she clung to him, until he raised his fist and struck her squarely in the face. Lurine staggered against the wall, and Jean ran on.
He told her his name was Jean Duret, and by-and-by she called him Jean, and he called her Lurine. He never haunted the Pharmacie now, but waited for her at the corner, and one Sunday he took her for a little excursion on the river, which she enjoyed exceedingly. Thus time went on, and Lurine was very happy.
Lurine, was pretty, petite, and eighteen. She had a nice situation at the Pharmacie de Siam, in the Rue St. Honoré. She had no one dependent upon her, and all the money she earned was her own.
Girls in her position are not supposed to have normal introductions to their lovers, and are generally dependent upon a haphazard acquaintance, although that Lurine did not know. The young man spoke to her on the bridge, raising his hat from his black head as he did so. "Good evening!" was all he said to her.
"Yes," said the other, "but we have enough on our hands now, if the crowd find out who he is." Lurine thought of following them, but she was so stunned by the words that her lover had said to her, rather than by the blow he had given her that she turned her steps sadly towards the Pont Royal and went to her room.
The next morning she did not go through the gardens, as usual, to her work, and when she entered the Pharmacie de Siam, the proprietor cried out, "Here she is, the vixen! Who would have thought it of her? You wretch, you stole my drugs to give to that villain!" "I did not," said Lurine, stoutly. "I put the money in the till for them." "Hear her! She confesses!" said the proprietor.
She almost cried it aloud to her favorite statue the next morning, for it seemed to her that the smile had broadened since she had passed it the morning before, and she felt as if the woman of stone had guessed the secret of the woman of flesh. Lurine had noticed him for several days hovering about the Pharmacie, and looking in at her now and then; she saw it all, but pretended not to see.
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