e garret of the house, and there Claes
spent the greater part of his time. But the poor lady was to learn the
full truth from the neighbours she had attempted to hoodwink. They asked
her if she meant to see herself and her children ruined, adding that her
husband was spending a fortune on scientific instruments, machinery,
books, and materials in a search for the Philosopher's Stone.

Humiliated that the neighbours should know more than she did, and
terrified by the prospect in front of her, Josephine at last spoke to
her husband.

"My dear," he said, "you would not understand what I am about. I am
studying chemistry, and I am perfectly happy."

Things went from bad to worse. Claes became more taciturn and more
invisible to his family. He was slovenly in dress and untidy in his
habits. Only his servant Lemulquinier, or Mulquinier, as he was often
called, was allowed to enter the attic and share his master's secrets.
Mme. Claes had a rival. It was science.

One day she went to the garret, but Claes repulsed her with wrath and
roughness.

"My experiment is absolutely spoilt," he cried vehemently. "In another
minute I might have resolved nitrogen."

_II.--The Riddle of Existence_

Josephine consulted Claes's notary, M. Pierquin, a young man and a
relative of the family. He looked into matters, and found that Claes
owed a hundred thousand francs to a firm of chemists in Paris. He warned
Josephine that ruin was certain if this state of things continued.
Hitherto she had loved husband more than children; now the mother was
roused in her, and for her children's sakes she determined to act. She
had sold her diamonds to provide for the housekeeping, since for six
months Claes had given her nothing; she had sent away the governess; she
had economised in a hundred directions. Now she must act against her
husband. But her children came between her and her true life, since her
true life was Balthazar's. She loved him with a sublime passion which
could sacrifice everything except her children.

One Sunday, after vespers, in 1812, she sent for her husband, and
awaited him at a window of one of the lower rooms, which looked on the
garden. Tears were in her eyes. As she sat there, suddenly over her head
sounded the footsteps of Claes, making her start. No one could have
heard that slow and dragging step unmoved. One wondered if it were a
living thing.

He entered the apartment, thin, round-shouldered, with disordered long