nothing.

He fancied he had discovered himself the whole line of proceeding which
his wife had so carefully traced out for him. In the full sincerity
of his heart, he believed he had composed and written out the speeches
which she drew up for him; and the articles for the newspapers, and the
letters, which she dictated, appeared to him all to have sprung from his
own fertile brains. He was even sometimes surprised at the want of good
sense in his wife, and pointed out to her, quite ironically, that
the steps from which she tried hardest to dissuade him were the most
successful he took. But no irony could turn the countess from the path
which she had traced out for herself; nor did she ever allow a word or
even a smile to escape her, that might have betrayed her secret. When
her husband became sarcastic, she bowed her head, and said nothing. But,
the more he gloried in his utter nullity, the more she delighted in
her work, and found ample compensation in the approval of her own
conscience.

The count had been so exceedingly good as to take her when she was
penniless; she owed him the historic name she bore and a large fortune;
but, in return, she had given him, and without his being aware of it,
a position of some eminence. She had made him happy in the only way in
which a small and ordinary man could be made happy,--by gratifying his
vanity.

Now she was no longer under obligations to him.

"Yes," she said to herself, "we are quits, fairly quits!"

Now also, she reproached herself no longer for the long hours during
which her thoughts, escaping from the control of her will, had turned to
the man of her early choice.

Poor fellow! She had been his evil star.

His life had been imbittered from the day on which he found himself
forsaken by her whom he loved better than life itself. He had given up
every thing.

His parents had "hunted up" an heiress, as they called it, and he had
married her dutifully. But the good old people had been unlucky. The
bride, chosen among a thousand, had brought their son a fortune of a
hundred thousand dollars; but she was a bad woman. And after eight years
of wretched, intolerable married life, Peter Champcey had shot himself,
unable to bear any longer his domestic misfortunes, and the infidelity
of his wife.

He had, however, avoided committing this crime at Angers, where he held
a high official position. He had gone to Rosiers, the house formerly
occupied by Pauline's mother; an