Lemulquinier came down a moment later, and said his master was following
him. Madame Claes's eyes never left the parlor door, but her husband
did not appear until the ceremony was over. When at last he entered,
Josephine colored and a few tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Were you trying to decompose nitrogen?" she said to him with an angelic
tenderness which made the spectators quiver.

"I have done it!" he cried joyfully; "Nitrogen contains oxygen and a
substance of the nature of imponderable matter, which is apparently the
principle of--"

A murmur of horror interrupted his words and brought him to his senses.

"What did they tell me?" he demanded. "Are you worse? What is the
matter?"

"This is the matter, monsieur," whispered the Abbe de Solis, indignant
at his conduct; "your wife is dying, and you have killed her."

Without waiting for an answer the abbe took the arm of his nephew and
went out followed by the family, who accompanied him to the court-yard.
Balthazar stood as if thunderstruck; he looked at his wife, and a few
tears dropped from his eyes.

"You are dying, and I have killed you!" he said. "What does he mean?"

"My husband," she answered, "I only lived in your love, and you have
taken my life away from me; but you knew not what you did."

"Leave us," said Claes to his children, who now re-entered the room.
"Have I for one moment ceased to love you?" he went on, sitting down
beside his wife, and taking her hands and kissing them.

"My friend, I do not blame you. You made me happy--too happy, for I have
not been able to bear the contrast between our early married life, so
full of joy, and these last days, so desolate, so empty, when you are
not yourself. The life of the heart, like the life of the body, has its
functions. For six years you have been dead to love, to the family, to
all that was once our happiness. I will not speak of our early married
days; such joys must cease in the after-time of life, but they ripen
into fruits which feed the soul,--confidence unlimited, the tender
habits of affection: you have torn those treasures from me! I go in
time: we live together no longer; you hide your thoughts and actions
from me. How is it that you fear me? Have I ever given you one word,
one look, one gesture of reproach? And yet, you have sold your last
pictures, you have sold even the wine in your cellar, you are borrowing
money on your property, and have said no word to me. Ah! I go from
life w