your lover!" Georges had exclaimed angrily, his eyes gazing
into hers.

She had not denied it; she had not even turned her eyes away.

And to think that he had sacrificed everything to that woman--his
fortune, his honor, even his lovely Claire, who lay sleeping with her
child in the adjoining room--a whole lifetime of happiness within reach
of his hand, which he had spurned for that vile creature! Now she had
admitted that she did not love him, that she loved another. And he,
the coward, still longed for her. In heaven's name, what potion had she
given him?

Carried away by indignation that made the blood boil in his veins,
Georges Fromont started from his armchair and strode feverishly up and
down the room, his footsteps echoing in the silence of the sleeping
house like living insomnia. The other was asleep upstairs. She could
sleep by favor of her heedless, remorseless nature. Perhaps, too, she
was thinking of her Cazaboni.

When that thought passed through his mind, Georges had a mad longing to
go up, to wake Risler, to tell him everything and destroy himself with
her. Really that deluded husband was too idiotic! Why did he not watch
her more closely? She was pretty enough, yes, and vicious enough, too,
for every precaution to be taken with her.

And it was while he was struggling amid such cruel and unfruitful
reflections as these that the devil of anxiety whispered in his ear:

"The notes! the notes!"

The miserable wretch! In his wrath he had entirely forgotten them.
And yet he had long watched the approach of that terrible last day of
January. How many times, between two assignations, when his mind, free
for a moment from thoughts of Sidonie, recurred to his business, to the
realities of life-how many times had he said to himself, "That day
will be the end of everything!" But, as with all those who live in the
delirium of intoxication, his cowardice convinced him that it was too
late to mend matters, and he returned more quickly and more determinedly
to his evil courses, in order to forget, to divert his thoughts.

But that was no longer possible. He saw the impending disaster clearly,
in its full meaning; and Sigismond Planus's wrinkled, solemn face rose
before him with its sharply cut features, whose absence of expression
softened their harshness, and his light German-Swiss eyes, which had
haunted him for many weeks with their impassive stare.

Well, no, he had not the hundred thousand francs, nor did