fall, M. Gardinois' refusal, all these maddening
things which followed so closely on one another's heels and had agitated
him terribly, culminated in a genuine nervous attack. Claire took pity
on him, put him to bed, and established herself by his side; but her
voice had lost that affectionate intonation which soothes and persuades.
There was in her gestures, in the way in which she arranged the pillow
under the patient's head and prepared a quieting draught, a strange
indifference, listlessness.

"But I have ruined you!" Georges said from time to time, as if to rouse
her from that apathy which made him uncomfortable. She replied with a
proud, disdainful gesture. Ah! if he had done only that to her!

At last, however, his nerves became calmer, the fever subsided, and he
fell asleep.

She remained to attend to his wants.

"It is my duty," she said to herself.

Her duty. She had reached that point with the man whom she had adored so
blindly, with the hope of a long and happy life together.

At that moment the ball in Sidonie's apartments began to become very
animated. The ceiling trembled rhythmically, for Madame had had all the
carpets removed from her salons for the greater comfort of the dancers.
Sometimes, too, the sound of voices reached Claire's ears in waves,
and frequent tumultuous applause, from which one could divine the great
number of the guests, the crowded condition of the rooms.

Claire was lost in thought. She did not waste time in regrets, in
fruitless lamentations. She knew that life was inflexible and that
all the arguments in the world will not arrest the cruel logic of its
inevitable progress. She did not ask herself how that man had succeeded
in deceiving her so long--how he could have sacrificed the honor and
happiness of his family for a mere caprice. That was the fact, and all
her reflections could not wipe it out, could not repair the irreparable.
The subject that engrossed her thoughts was the future. A new existence
was unfolding before her eyes, dark, cruel, full of privation and toil;
and, strangely enough, the prospect of ruin, instead of terrifying her,
restored all her courage. The idea of the change of abode made
necessary by the economy they would be obliged to practise, of work made
compulsory for Georges and perhaps for herself, infused an indefinable
energy into the distressing calmness of her despair. What a heavy burden
of souls she would have with her three children: her mot