, a collection of images,
and spread them out on the bed in order to amuse him. She even made an
attempt to sing.

She began to sing a little ballad which she used to sing years before,
when she was nursing him wrapped up in swaddling-clothes in this same
little upholstered chair. But a shiver ran all over his frame, just as
when a wave is agitated by the wind. The balls of his eyes protruded.
She thought he was going to die, and turned away her eyes to avoid
seeing him.

The next moment she felt strength enough in her to look at him. He was
still living. The hours succeeded each other--dull, mournful,
interminable, hopeless, and she no longer counted the minutes, save by
the progress of this mental anguish. The shakings of his chest threw him
forward as if to shatter his body. Finally, he vomited something
strange, which was like a parchment tube. What was this? She fancied
that he had evacuated one end of his entrails. But he now began to
breathe freely and regularly. This appearance of well-being frightened
her more than anything else that had happened. She was sitting like one
petrified, her arms hanging by her sides, her eyes fixed, when M. Colot
suddenly made his appearance. The child, in his opinion, was saved.

She did not realise what he meant at first, and made him repeat the
words. Was not this one of those consoling phrases which were customary
with medical men? The doctor went away with an air of tranquillity. Then
it seemed as if the cords that pressed round her heart were loosened.

"Saved! Is this possible?"

Suddenly the thought of Frederick presented itself to her mind in a
clear and inexorable fashion. It was a warning sent to her by
Providence. But the Lord in His mercy had not wished to complete her
chastisement. What expiation could she offer hereafter if she were to
persevere in this love-affair? No doubt insults would be flung at her
son's head on her account; and Madame Arnoux saw him a young man,
wounded in a combat, carried off on a litter, dying. At one spring she
threw herself on the little chair, and, letting her soul escape towards
the heights of heaven, she vowed to God that she would sacrifice, as a
holocaust, her first real passion, her only weakness as a woman.

Frederick had returned home. He remained in his armchair, without even
possessing enough of energy to curse her. A sort of slumber fell upon
him, and, in the midst of his nightmare, he could hear the rain falling,
still