eir hours alone, trying to
keep her heart faithful to her lover. To divide her interest between her
legal companion and the man she loved was a torment that her simple and
vehement enthusiasm could not tolerate.

While she was hurrying one night through the rue de la Pompe, looking at
her watch and trembling with impatience at not finding an automobile
or even a cab, a man stood in front of her. . . . Etienne Laurier! She
always shuddered with fear on recalling that hour. For a moment
she believed that he was going to kill her. Serious men, quiet and
diffident, are most terrible in their explosions of wrath. Her husband
knew everything. With the same patience that he employed in solving his
industrial problems, he had been studying her day by day, without her
ever suspecting the watchfulness behind that impassive countenance. Then
he had followed her in order to complete the evidence of his misfortune.

Marguerite had never supposed that he could be so common and noisy in
his anger. She had expected that he would accept the facts coldly with
that slight tinge of philosophical irony usually shown by distinguished
men, as the husbands of her friends had done. But the poor engineer
who, outside of his work, saw only his wife, loving her as a woman,
and adoring her as a dainty and superior being, a model of grace and
elegance, could not endure the thought of her downfall, and cried and
threatened without reserve, so that the scandal became known throughout
their entire circle of friends. The senator felt greatly annoyed in
remembering that it was in his exclusive home that the guilty ones had
become acquainted; but his displeasure was visited upon the husband.
What lack of good taste! . . . Women will be women, and everything
is capable of adjustment. But before the imprudent outbursts of this
frantic devil no elegant solution was possible, and there was now
nothing to do but to begin divorce proceedings.

Desnoyers, senior, was very indignant upon learning of this last
escapade of his son. He had always had a great liking for Laurier.
That instinctive bond which exists between men of industry, patient and
silent, had made them very congenial. At the senator's receptions he
had always talked with the engineer about the progress of his business,
interesting himself in the development of that factory of which he
always spoke with the affection of a father. The millionaire, in
spite of his reputation for miserliness, had eve