n the face,
and saw it as it was, commonplace and puerile. He took it down, and
shrugging his shoulders, called himself a fool. Therese had risen
from the low chair, and was tumbling the bed about for the purpose of
deceiving her aunt, so as to make her believe they had passed a happy
night.

"Look here," Laurent brutally remarked to her, "I hope we shall sleep
well to-night! There must be an end to this sort of childishness."

Therese cast a deep, grave glance at him.

"You understand," he continued. "I did not marry for the purpose of
passing sleepless nights. We are just like children. It was you who
disturbed me with your ghostly airs. To-night you will try to be gay,
and not frighten me."

He forced himself to laugh without knowing why he did so.

"I will try," gloomily answered the young woman.

Such was the wedding night of Therese and Laurent.

CHAPTER XXII

The following nights proved still more cruel. The murderers had wished
to pass this part of the twenty-four hours together, so as to be able
to defend themselves against the drowned man, and by a strange effect,
since they had been doing so, they shuddered the more. They were
exasperated, and their nerves so irritated, that they underwent
atrocious attacks of suffering and terror, at the exchange of a simple
word or look. At the slightest conversation between them, at the least
talk, they had alone, they began raving, and were ready to draw blood.

The sort of remorse Laurent experienced was purely physical. His body,
his irritated nerves and trembling frame alone were afraid of the
drowned man. His conscience was for nothing in his terror. He did not
feel the least regret at having killed Camille. When he was calm, when
the spectre did not happen to be there, he would have committed the
murder over again, had he thought his interests absolutely required it.

During the daytime he laughed at himself for his fright, making up his
mind to be stronger, and he harshly rebuked Therese, whom he accused of
troubling him. According to what he said, it was Therese who shuddered,
it was Therese alone who brought on the frightful scenes, at night, in
the bedroom. And, as soon as night came, as soon as he found himself
shut in with his wife, icy perspiration pearled on his skin, and his
frame shook with childish terror.

He thus underwent intermittent nervous attacks that returned nightly,
and threw his senses into confusion while showing him the hideou