e had been the slave of pleasures which she did
not share; to-day the satisfaction of knowing that she purchased his
contentment with her tears was hers no longer. She was alone in the
world, nothing was left to her now but a choice of evils. In the calm
stillness of the night her despondency drained her of all her strength.
She rose from her sofa beside the dying fire, and stood in the lamplight
gazing, dry-eyed, at her child, when M. d'Aiglemont came in. He was in
high spirits. Julie called to him to admire Helene as she lay asleep,
but he met his wife's enthusiasm with a commonplace:

"All children are nice at that age."

He closed the curtains about the cot after a careless kiss on the
child's forehead. Then he turned his eyes on Julie, took her hand and
drew her to sit beside him on the sofa, where she had been sitting with
such dark thoughts surging up in her mind.

"You are looking very handsome to-night, Mme. d'Aiglemont," he
exclaimed, with the gaiety intolerable to the Marquise, who knew its
emptiness so well.

"Where have you spent the evening?" she asked, with a pretence of
complete indifference.

"At Mme. de Serizy's."

He had taken up a fire-screen, and was looking intently at the gauze. He
had not noticed the traces of tears on his wife's face. Julie shuddered.
Words could not express the overflowing torrent of thoughts which must
be forced down into inner depths.

"Mme. de Serizy is giving a concert on Monday, and is dying for you to
go. You have not been anywhere for some time past, and that is enough
to set her longing to see you at her house. She is a good-natured
woman, and very fond of you. I should be glad if you would go; I all but
promised that you should----"

"I will go."

There was something so penetrating, so significant in the tones of
Julie's voice, in her accent, in the glance that went with the words,
that Victor, startled out of his indifference, stared at his wife in
astonishment.

That was all, Julie had guessed that it was Mme. de Serizy who had
stolen her husband's heart from her. Her brooding despair benumbed her.
She appeared to be deeply interested in the fire. Victor meanwhile still
played with the fire-screen. He looked bored, like a man who has enjoyed
himself elsewhere, and brought home the consequent lassitude. He yawned
once or twice, then he took up a candle in one hand, and with the
other languidly sought his wife's neck for the usual embrace; but Julie
stoop