tion as the husband. At all events, we shall see.
It always comes to this, that we are nailed. We cannot get out of it."

She felt a longing to scream, to roll on the ground, to tear her hair
out. She said at length, in exasperated tones: "He shall not have her. I
won't have it."

Walter rose, picked up his lamp, and remarked: "There, you are stupid,
just like all women. You never do anything except from passion. You do
not know how to bend yourself to circumstances. You are stupid. I will
tell you that he shall marry her. It must be."

He went out, shuffling along in his slippers. He traversed--a comical
phantom in his nightshirt--the broad corridor of the huge slumbering
house, and noiselessly re-entered his room.

Madame Walter remained standing, torn by intolerable grief. She did not
yet quite understand it. She was only conscious of suffering. Then it
seemed to her that she could not remain there motionless till daylight.
She felt within her a violent necessity of fleeing, of running away, of
seeking help, of being succored. She sought whom she could summon to
her. What man? She could not find one. A priest; yes, a priest! She
would throw herself at his feet, acknowledge everything, confess her
fault and her despair. He would understand that this wretch must not

marry Susan, and would prevent it. She must have a priest at once. But
where could she find one? Whither could she go? Yet she could not remain
like that.

Then there passed before her eyes, like a vision, the calm figure of
Jesus walking on the waters. She saw it as she saw it in the picture. So
he was calling her. He was saying: "Come to me; come and kneel at my
feet. I will console you, and inspire you with what should be done."

She took her candle, left the room, and went downstairs to the
conservatory. The picture of Jesus was right at the end of it in a small
drawing-room, shut off by a glass door, in order that the dampness of
the soil should not damage the canvas. It formed a kind of chapel in a
forest of strange trees. When Madame Walter entered the winter garden,
never having seen it before save full of light, she was struck by its
obscure profundity. The dense plants of the tropics made the atmosphere
thick with their heavy breath; and the doors no longer being open, the
air of this strange wood, enclosed beneath a glass roof, entered the
chest with difficulty; intoxicated, caused pleasure and pain, and
imparted a confused sensation of e