noticed it before, was
now conscious that she was only half dressed, that her arms were bare,
her shoulders bare, covered only by the scattered locks of her unbound
hair, and on her right shoulder, near the armpit, on lowering her eyes,
she perceived again the few drops of blood of the bruise which he had
given her, when he had grasped her roughly, in struggling to master her.
Then an extraordinary confusion took possession of her, a certainty that
she was going to be vanquished, as if by this grasp he had become her
master, and forever. This sensation was prolonged; she was seized and
drawn on, without the consent of her will, by an irresistible impulse to
submit.

Abruptly Clotilde straightened herself, struggling with herself, wishing
to reflect and to recover herself. She pressed her bare arms against
her naked throat. All the blood in her body rushed to her skin in a rosy
blush of shame. Then, in her divine and slender grace, she turned to
flee.

"Master, master, let me go--I will see--"

With the swiftness of alarmed maidenhood, she took refuge in her
chamber, as she had done once before. He heard her lock the door
hastily, with a double turn of the key. He remained alone, and he asked
himself suddenly, seized by infinite discouragement and sadness, if he
had done right in speaking, if the truth would germinate in this dear
and adored creature, and bear one day a harvest of happiness.

VI.

The days wore on. October began with magnificent weather--a sultry
autumn in which the fervid heat of summer was prolonged, with a
cloudless sky. Then the weather changed, fierce winds began to blow, and
a last storm channeled gullies in the hillsides. And to the melancholy
household at La Souleiade the approach of winter seemed to have brought
an infinite sadness.

It was a new hell. There were no more violent quarrels between Pascal
and Clotilde. The doors were no longer slammed. Voices raised in dispute
no longer obliged Martine to go continually upstairs to listen outside
the door. They scarcely spoke to each other now; and not a single word
had been exchanged between them regarding the midnight scene, although
weeks had passed since it had taken place. He, through an inexplicable
scruple, a strange delicacy of which he was not himself conscious, did
not wish to renew the conversation, and to demand the answer which he
expected--a promise of faith in him and of submission. She, after the
great moral shock whic