so that Bertha might hear him in the neighboring room.

"Do you know," said he, "that our friend has an income of sixty
thousand crowns? We'll find an estate for him near by, and then we
shall see him and his wife every day. They will be very pleasant
society for us in the autumn months. Hector is a fine fellow, and
you've often told me how charming Laurence is."

Bertha did not reply. This unexpected blow was so terrible that
she could not think clearly, and her brain whirled.

"You don't say anything," pursued Sauvresy. "Don't you approve of
my project? I thought you'd be enchanted with it."

She saw that if she were silent any longer, her husband would go
in and find her sunk upon a chair, and would guess all. She made
an effort and said, in a strangled voice, without attaching any
sense to her words:

"Yes, yes; it is a capital idea."

"How you say that! Do you see any objections?"

She was trying to find some objection, but could not.

"I have a little fear of Laurence's future," said she at last.

"Bah! Why?"

"I only say what I've heard you say. You told me that Monsieur
Tremorel has been a libertine, a gambler, a prodigal--"

"All the more reason for trusting him. His past follies guarantee
his future prudence. He has received a lesson which he will not
forget. Besides, he will love his wife."

"How do you know?"

"Parbleu, he loves her already."

"Who told you so?"

"Himself."

And Sauvresy began to laugh about Hector's passion, which he said
was becoming quite pastoral.

"Would you believe," said he, laughing, "that he thinks our worthy
Courtois a man of wit? Ah, what spectacles these lovers look
through! He spends two or three hours every day with the mayor.
What do you suppose he does there?"

Bertha, by great effort, succeeded in dissembling her grief; she
reappeared with a smiling face. She went and came, apparently calm,
though suffering the bitterest anguish a woman can endure. And she
could not run to Hector, and ask him if it were true!

For Sauvresy must be deceiving her. Why? She knew not. No matter.
She felt her hatred of him increasing to disgust; for she excused
and pardoned her lover, and she blamed her husband alone. Whose
idea was this marriage? His. Who had awakened Hector's hopes, and
encouraged them? He, always he. While he had been harmless, she
had been able to pardon him for having married her; she had
compelled herself to bear him, to feign a love quite foreign