his election, and reminded him of his famous
remark about Madame Astier's veils that smelt of tobacco, though
he never smoked, 'a remark, my dear, that has done more to make you
notorious than your books.'

He gave a low deep groan, the stifled cry of a man who stays with both
hands the life escaping from a mortal rent The sharp little voice went
on unaltered. 'Ah well, pack your trunk, do, once for all! Let the world
hear no more of you. Fortunately your son is rich and will give you
your daily bread. For you need not be told that now you will find no
publisher or magazine to take your rubbish, and it will be due to Paul's
supposed infamy that you escape starvation.'

'This is more than I can bear,' muttered the poor man as he fled away,
away from the lashing fury. And as he felt his way along the walls, and
passed through the passage, down the stairs, across the echoing court,
he muttered almost in tears, 'More than I can bear, more than I can
bear.'

Whither is he going? Straight before him, as if in a dream. He crosses
the square and is half over the bridge, before the fresh air revives
him. He sits down on a bench, takes off his hat and pulls up his coat
sleeves to still the beating of his pulses; and the regular lapping of
the water makes him calmer. He comes to himself again, but consciousness
brings only memory and pain. What a woman! what a monster! And to think
that he has lived five-and-thirty years with her and not known her! A
shudder of disgust runs over him at the recollection of all the horrors
he has just heard. She has spared nothing and left within him nothing
alive, not even the pride which still kept him erect, his faith in his
work and his belief in the Academie. At the thought of the Academie he
instinctively turned round. Beyond the deserted bridge, beyond the wider
avenue which leads to the foot of the building, the pile of the Palais
Mazarin, massed together in the darkness, up-reared its portico and its
dome, as on the cover of the Didot books, so often gazed upon in his
young days and in the ambitious aspirations of his whole life. That
dome, that block of stone, had been the delusive object of his hopes,
and the cause of all his misery.

It was there he sought his wife, feeling neither love nor delight, but
for the hope of the Institute. And he has had the coveted seat, and he
knows the price!

Just then there was a sound of steps and laughter on the bridge; it came
nearer. Some stude