ld hide itself, des
Lupeaulx hesitated for a single instant, and looked at Madame Rabourdin,
while he inwardly asked himself, "Which shall I permit to triumph, my
hatred for him, or my fancy for her?"

"You have no confidence in my honor," he said, after a pause. "I see
that you will always be to me the author of your /secret analysis/.
Adieu, madame."

Madame Rabourdin bowed coldly. Celestine and Xavier returned at once to
their own rooms without a word; both were overcome by their misfortune.
The wife thought of the dreadful situation in which she stood toward her
husband. The husband, resolving slowly not to remain at the ministry but
to send in his resignation at once, was lost in a sea of reflections;
the crisis for him meant a total change of life and the necessity of
starting on a new career. All night he sat before his fire, taking
no notice of Celestine, who came in several times on tiptoe, in her
night-dress.

"I must go once more to the ministry, to bring away my papers, and show
Baudoyer the routine of the business," he said to himself at last. "I
had better write my resignation now."

He turned to his table and began to write, thinking over each clause of
the letter, which was as follows:--

Monseigneur,--I have the honor to inclose to your Excellency my
resignation. I venture to hope that you still remember hearing me
say that I left my honor in your hands, and that everything, for
me, depended on my being able to give you an immediate
explanation.

This explanation I have vainly sought to give. To-day it would,
perhaps, be useless; for a fragment of my work relating to the
administration, stolen and misused, has gone the rounds of the
offices and is misinterpreted by hatred; in consequence, I find
myself compelled to resign, under the tacit condemnation of my
superiors.

Your Excellency may have thought, on the morning when I first
sought to speak with you, that my purpose was to ask for my
promotion, when, in fact, I was thinking only of the glory and
usefulness of your ministry and of the public good. It is
all-important, I think, to correct that impression.

Then followed the usual epistolary formulas.

It was half-past seven in the morning when the man consummated the
sacrifice of his ideas; he burned everything, the toil of years.
Fatigued by the pressure of thought, overcome by mental suffering, he
fell asleep with his head on the back of his armchair. He