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THE dawn of the following day brought bad news to Andermatt.

He learned on his arrival at the bath-establishment that M. Aubry-Pasteur had died during the night from an attack of apoplexy at the Hotel Splendid. In addition to the fact that the deceased was very useful to him on account of his vast scientific attainments, disinterested zeal, and attachment to the Mont Oriol station, which, in some measure, he looked upon as a daughter, it was much to be regretted that a patient who had come there to fight against a tendency toward congestion should have died exactly in this fashion, in the midst of his treatment, in the very height of the season, at the very moment when the rising spa was beginning to prove a success.

The banker, exceedingly annoyed, walked up and down in the study of the absent inspector, thinking of some device whereby this misfortune might be attributed to some other cause, such as an accident, a fall, a want of prudence, the rupture of an artery; and he impatiently awaited Doctor Latonne’s arrival in order that the decease might be ingeniously certified without awakening any suspicion as to the initial cause of the fatality.

All at once, the medical inspector appeared on the scene, his face pale and indicative of extreme agitation; and, as soon as he had passed through the door, he asked: “Have you heard the lamentable news?”

“Yes, the death of M. Aubry-Pasteur.”

“No, no, the flight of Doctor Mazelli with Professor Cloche’s daughter.”

Andermatt felt a shiver running along his skin.

“What? you tell me— “

“Oh! my dear manager, it is a frightful catastrophe, a crash!”

He sat down and wiped his forehead; then he related the facts as he got them from Petrus Martel, who had learned them directly through the professor’s valet.

Mazelli had paid very marked attentions to the pretty red-haired widow, a coarse coquette, a wanton, whose first husband had succumbed to consumption, brought on, it was said, by excessive devotion to his matrimonial duties. But M. Cloche, having discovered the projects of the Italian physician, and not desiring this adventurer as a second son-in-law, violently turned him out of doors on surprising him kneeling at the widow’s feet.

Mazelli, having been sent out by the door, soon reentered through the window by the silken ladder of lovers. Two versions of the affair were current. According to the first, he had rendered the professor’s daughter mad with love and jealousy; according to the second, he had continued to see her secretly, while pretending to be devoting his attention to another woman; and ascertaining finally through his mistress that the professor remained inflexible, he had carried her off, the same night, rendering a marriage inevitable, in consequence of this scandal.

Doctor Latonne rose up and, leaning his back against the mantelpiece, while Andermatt, astounded, continued walking up and down, he exclaimed:

“A physician, Monsieur, a physician to do such a thing! — a doctor of medicine! — what an absence of character!”

Andermatt, completely crushed, appreciated the consequences, classified them, and weighed them, as one docs a sum in addition. They were: “First, the disagreeable report spreading over the neighboring spas and all the way to Paris. If, however, they went the right way about it, perhaps they could make use of this elopement as an advertisement. A fortnight’s cchoes well written and prominently printed in the newspapers would strongly attract attention to Mont Oriol. Secondly: Professor Cloche’s departure an irreparable loss. Thirdly: The departure of the Duchess and the Duke de Ramas-Aldavarra, a second inevitable loss without possible compensation. In short, Doctor Latonne was right. It was a frightful catastrophe.”

Then, the banker, turning toward the physician: “You ought to go at once to the Hotel Splendid, and draw up the certificate of the death of Aubry-

Pasteur in such a way that no one could suspect it to be a case of congestion.”

Doctor Latonne put on his hat; then just as he was leaving: “Ha! another rumor which is circulating! Is it true that your friend Paul Bretigny is going to marry Charlotte Oriol?”

Andermatt gave a start of astonishment. “Bretigny? Come now! — who told you that?”

“Why, as in the other case, Petrus Martel, who had it from Père Oriol himself.”

“From Père Oriol?”

“Yes, from Père Oriol, who declared that his future son-in-law possessed a fortune of three millions.” William did not know what to think. He muttered: “In point of fact, it is possible. He has been rather hot on her for some time past! But in that case the whole knoll is ours — the whole knoll! Oh! I must make certain of this immediately.” And he went out after the doctor in order to meet Paul before breakfast.

As he was entering the hotel, he was informed that his wife had several times asked to see him. He found her still in bed, chatting with her father and with her brother, who was looking through the newspapers with a rapid and wandering glance. She felt poorly, very poorly, restless. She was afraid, without knowing why. And then an idea had come to her, and had for some days been growing stronger in her brain, as usually happens with pregnant women. She wanted to consult Doctor Black. From the effect of hearing around her some jokes at Doctor Latonne’s expense, she had lost all confidence in him, and she wanted another opinion, that of Doctor Black, whose success was constantly increasing. Fears, all the fears, all the hauntings, by which women toward the close of pregnancy are besieged, now tortured her from morning until night. Since the night before, in consequence of a dream, she imagined that the Cæsarian operation might be necessary. And she was present in thought at this operation performed on herself. She saw herself lying on her back in a bed covered with blood, while something red was being taken away, which did not move, which did not cry, and which was dead! And for ten minutes she shut her eyes, in order to witness this over again, to be present once more at her horrible and painful punishment. She had, therefore, become impressed with the notion that Doctor Black alone could tell her the truth, and she wanted him at once; she required him to examine her immediately, immediately, immediately! Andermatt, greatly agitated, did not know what answer to give her.

“But my dear child, it is difficult, having regard to my relations with Latonne it is even impossible. Listen! an idea occurs to me: I will look up Professor Mas-Roussel, who is a hundred times better than Black. He will not refuse to come when I ask him.”

But she persisted. She wanted Black, and no one else. She required to see him with his big bulldog’s head beside her. It was a longing, a wild, superstitious desire. She considered it necessary for him to see her.

Then William attempted to change the current of her thoughts:

“You haven’t heard how that intriguer Mazelli carried off Professor Cloche’s daughter the other night.

They are gone away; nobody can tell where they levanted to. There’s a nice story for you!”

She was propped up on her pillow, her eyes strained with grief, and she faltered: “Oh! the poor Duchess — the poor woman — how I pity her!” Her heart had long since learned to understand that other woman’s heart, bruised and impassioned! She suffered from the same malady and wept the same tears. But she resumed: “Listen, Will! Go and find M. Black for me. I know I shall die unless he comes!”

Andermatt caught her hand, and tenderly kissed it: “Come, my little Christiane, be reasonable — understand.”

He saw her eyes filled with tears, and, turning toward the Marquis:

“It is you that ought to do this, my dear father-in-law. As for me, I can’t do it. Black comes here every day about one o’clock to see the Princess de Maldebourg. Stop him in the passage, and send him in to your daughter. You can easily wait an hour, can you not, Christiane?”

She consented to wait an hour, but refused to get up to breakfast with the men, who passed alone into the diningroom.

Paul was there already. Andermatt, when he saw him, exclaimed: “Ah! tell me now, what is it I have been told a little while ago? You are going to marry Charlotte Oriol? It is not true, is it?”

The young man replied in a low tone, casting a restless look toward the closed door: “Good God! it is true!” Nobody having been sure of it till now, the three stared at him in amazement.

William asked: “What came over you? With your fortune, to marry — to embarrass yourself with one woman, when you have the whole of them? And then, after all, the family leaves something to be desired in the matter of refinement. It is all very well for Gontran, who hasn’t a sou!”

Bretigny began to laugh: “My father made a fortune out of flour; he was then a miller on a large scale. If you had known him, you might have said he lacked refinement. As for the young girl— “

Andermatt interrupted him: “Oh! perfect — charming — perfect — and you know — she will be as rich as yourself — if not more so. I answer for it — I — I answer for it!”

Gontran murmured: “Yes, this marriage interferes with nothing, and covers retreats. Only he was wrong in not giving us notice beforehand. How the devil was this business managed, my friend?”

Thereupon, Paul related all that had occurred with some slight modifications. He told about his hesitation, which he exaggerated, and his sudden determination on discovering from the young girl’s own lips that she loved him. He described the unexpected entrance of Père Oriol, their quarrel, which he enlarged upon, the countryman’s doubts concerning his fortune, and the incident of the stamped paper drawn by the old man out of the press.

Andermatt, laughing till the tears ran down his face, hit the table with his fist: “Ha! he did that over again, the stamped paper touch! It’s my invention, that is!”

But Paul stammered, reddening a little: “Pray don’t let your wife know about it yet. Owing to the terms which we are on at present, it is more suitable that I should announce it to her myself.” Gontran eyed his friend with an odd, good-humored smile, which seemed to say: “This is quite right, all this, quite right! That’s the way things ought to end, without noise, without scandals, without any dramatic situations.”

He suggested: “If you like, my dear Paul, we’ll go together, after dinner, when she’s up, and you will inform her of your decision.”

Their eyes met, fixed, full of unfathomable thoughts, then looked in another direction. And Paul replied with an air of indifference:

“Yes, willingly. We’ll talk about this presently.” A waiter from the hotel came to inform them that Doctor Black had just arrived for his visit to the Princess; and the Marquis forthwith went out to catch him in the passage. He explained the situation to the doctor, his son-in-law’s embarrassment and his daughter’s earnest wish, and he brought him in without resistance.

As soon as the little man with the big head had entered Christiane’s apartment, she said: “Papa, leave us alone!” And the Marquis withdrew.

Thereupon, she enumerated her disquietudes, her terrors, her nightmares, in a low, sweet voice, as though she were at confession. And the physician listened to her like a priest, covering her sometimes with his big round eyes, showed his attention by a little nod of the head, murmured a “That’s it,” which seemed to mean, “I know your case at the end of my fingers, and I will cure you whenever I like.”

When she had finished speaking, he began in his turn to question her with extreme minuteness of detail about her life, her habits, her course of diet, her treatment. At one moment he appeared to express approval with a gesture, at another to convey blame with an “Oh!” full of reservations. When she came to her great fear that the child was misplaced, he rose up, and with an ecclesiastical modesty, lightly passed his hand over the counterpane, and then remarked, “No, it’s all right.”

And she felt a longing to embrace him. What a good man this physician was!

He sat down at the table, took a sheet of paper, and wrote out the prescription. It was long, very long. Then he came back close to the bed, and, in an altered tone, clearly indicating that he had finished his professional and sacred duty, he began to chat. He had a deep, unctuous voice, the powerful voice of a thickset dwarf, and there were hidden questions in his most ordinary phrases. He talked about everything. Gontran’s marriage seemed to interest him considerably. Then, with his ugly smile like that of an ill-shaped being:

“I have said nothing yet to you about M. Bretigny’s marriage, although it cannot be a secret, for Père Oriol has told it to everybody.”

A kind of fainting fit took possession of her, commencing at the end of her fingers, then invading her entire body — her arms, her breast, her stomach, her legs. She did not, however, quite understand; but a horrible fear of not learning the truth suddenly restored her powers of observation, and she faltered: “Ha! Père Oriol has told it to everybody?”

“Yes, yes. He was speaking to myself about it less than ten minutes ago. It appears that M. Bretigny is very rich, and that he has been in love with little Charlotte for some time past. Moreover, it is Madame Honorat who made these two matches. She lent her hands and her house for the meetings of the young people.”

Christiane had closed her eyes. She had lost consciousness. In answer to the doctor’s call, a chambermaid rushed in; then appeared the Marquis, Andermatt, and Gontran, who went to search for vinegar, ether, ice, twenty different things all equally useless. Suddenly, the young woman moved, opened her eyes, lifted up her arms, and uttered a heartrending cry, writhing in the bed. She tried to speak, and in a broken voice said:

“Oh! what pain I feel — my God! — what pain I feel — in my back — something is tearing me — Oh! my God!” And she broke out into fresh shrieks.

The symptoms of confinement were speedily recognized. Then Andermatt rushed off to find Doctor Latonne, and came upon him finishing his meal.

“Come on quickly — my wife has met with a mishap — hurry on!” Then he made use of a little deception, telling how Doctor Black had been found in the hotel at the moment of the first pains. Doctor Black himself confirmed this falsehood by saying to his brother-physician:

“I had just come to visit the Princess when I was informed that Madame Andermatt was taken ill. I hurried to her. It was time!”

But William, in a state of great excitement, his heart beating, his soul filled with alarm was all at once seized with doubts as to the competency of the two professional men, and he started off afresh, bareheaded, in order to run in the direction of Professor Mas-Roussel’s house, and to entreat him to come. The professor consented to do so at once, buttoned on his frock-coat with the mechanical movement of a physician going out to pay a visit, and set forth with great, rapid strides, the eager strides of an eminent man whose presence may save a life.

When he arrived on the scene, the two other doctors, full of deference, consulted him with an air of humility, repeating together or nearly at the same time:

“Here is what has occurred, dear master. Don’t you think, dear master? Isn’t there reason to believe, dear master?”

Andermatt, in his turn, driven crazy with anguish at the moanings of his wife, harassed M. Mas-Roussel with questions, and also addressed him as “dear master” with wide-open mouth.

Christiane, almost naked in the presence of these men, no longer saw, noticed, or understood anything. She was suffering so dreadfully that everything else had vanished from her consciousness. It seemed to her that they were drawing from the tops of her hips along her side and her back a long saw, with blunt teeth, which was mangling her bones and muscles slowly and in an irregular fashion, with shakings, stoppages, and renewals of the operation, which became every moment more and more frightful.

When this torture abated for a few seconds, when the rendings of her body allowed her reason to come back, one thought then fixed itself in her soul, more cruel, more keen, more terrible, than her physical pain: “He was in love with another woman, and was going to marry her!”

And, in order to get rid of this pang, which was eating into her brain, she struggled to bring on once more the atrocious torment of her flesh; she shook her sides; she strained her back; and when the crisis returned again, she had, at least, lost all capacity for thought.

For fifteen hours she endured this martyrdom, so much bruised by suffering and despair that she longed to die, and strove to die in those spasms in which she writhed.

But, after a convulsion longer and more violent than the rest, it seemed to her that everything inside her body suddenly escaped from her. It was over; her pangs were assuaged, like the waves of the sea, when they are calmed; and the relief which she experienced was so intense that, for a time, even her grief became numbed. They spoke to her. She answered in a voice very weak, very low.

Suddenly, Andermatt stooped down, his face toward hers, and he said: “She will live — she is almost at the end of it. It is a girl!”

Christiane was only able to articulate: “Ah! my God!”

So then she had a child, a living child, who would grow big — a child of Paul! She felt a desire to cry out, all this fresh misfortune crushed her heart. She had a daughter. She did not want it! She would not look at it! She would never touch it!

They had laid her down again on the bed, taken care of her, tenderly embraced her. Who had done this? No doubt, her father and her husband. She could not tell. But he — where was he? What was he doing? How happy she would have felt at that moment, if only he still loved her!

The hours dragged along, following each other without any distinction between day and night so far as she was concerned, for she felt only this one thought burning into her soul: he loved another woman.

Then she said to herself all of a sudden: “What if it were false? Why should I not have known about his marriage sooner than this doctor?” After that, came the reflection that it had been kept hidden from her. Paul had taken care that she should not hear about it.

She glanced around her room to see who was there. A woman whom she did not know was keeping watch by her side, a woman of the people. She did not venture to question her. From whom, then, could she make inquiries about this matter?

The door was suddenly pushed open. Her husband entered on the tips of his toes. Seeing that her eyes were open, he came over to her.

“Are you better?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“You frightened us very much since yesterday. But there is an end of the danger! By the bye, I am quite embarrassed about your case. I telegraphed to our friend, Madame lcardon, who was to have come to stay with you during your confinement, informing her about your premature illness, and imploring her to hasten down here. She is with her nephew, who has an attack of scarlet fever. You cannot, however, remain without anyone near you, without some woman who is a little — a little suitable for the purpose. Accordingly, a lady from the neighborhood has offered to nurse you, and to keep you company every day, and, faith, I have accepted the offer. It is Madame Honorat.”

Christiane suddenly remembered Doctor Black’s words. A start of fear shook her; and she groaned: “Oh! no — no — not she!”

William did not understand, and went on: “Listen, I know well that she is very common; but your brother has a great esteem for her; she has been of great service to him; and then it has been thrown out that she was originally a midwife, whom Honorat made the acquaintance of while attending a patient. If you take a strong dislike to her, I will send her away the next day. Let us try her at any rate. Let her come once or twice.”

She remained silent, thinking. A craving to know, to know everything, entered into her, so violent that the hope of milking this woman chatter freely, of tearing from her one by one the words that would rend her own heart, now filled her with a yearning to reply: “Go, go, and look for her immediately — immediately. Go, pray!”

And to this irresistible desire to know was also superadded a strange longing to suffer more intensely, to roll herself about in her misery, as she might have rolled herself on thorns, the mysterious longing, morbid and feverish, of a martyr calling for fresh pain.

So she faltered: “Yes, I have no objection. Bring me Madame Honorat.”

Then, suddenly, she felt that she could not wait any longer without making sure, quite sure, of this treason; and she asked William in a voice weak as a breath:

“Is it true that M. Bretigny is getting married?”

He replied calmly: “Yes, it is true. We would have told you before this if we could have talked with you.”

She continued: “With Charlotte?”

“With Charlotte.”

Now William had also a fixed idea himself which from this time forth never left him — his daughter, as yet barely alive, whom every moment he was going to look at. He felt indignant because Christiane’s first words were not to ask for the baby; and in a tone of gentle reproach: “Well, look here! you have not yet inquired about the little one. You are aware that she is going on very well?”

She trembled as if he had touched a living wound; but it was necessary for her to pass through all the stations of this Calvary.

“Bring her here,” she said.

He vanished to the foot of the bed behind the curtain, then he came back, his face lighted up with pride and happiness, and holding in his hands, in an awkward fashion, a bundle of white linen.

He laid it down on the embroidered pillow close to the head of Christiane, who was choking with emotion, and he said: “Look here, see how lovely she is!”

She looked. He opened with two of his fingers the fine lace with which was hidden from view a little red face, so small, so red, with closed eyes, and mouth constantly moving.

And she thought, as she leaned over this beginning of being: “This is my daughter — Paul’s daughter. Here then is what made me suffer so much. This — this — this is my daughter!”

Her repugnance toward the child, whose birth had so fiercely torn her poor heart and her tender woman’s body had, all at once, disappeared; she now contemplated it with ardent and sorrowing curiosity, with profound astonishment, the astonishment of a being who sees her firstborn come forth from her.

Andermatt was waiting for her to caress it passionately. He was surprised and shocked, and asked: “Are you not going to kiss it?”

She stooped quite gently toward this little red forehead; and in proportion as she drew her lips closer to it, she felt them drawn, called by it. And when she had placed them upon it, when she touched it, a little moist, a little warm, warm with her own life, it seemed to her that she could not withdraw her lips from that infantile flesh, that she would leave them there forever.

Something grazed her cheek; it was her husband’s beard as he bent forward to kiss her. And when he had pressed her a long time against himself with a grateful tenderness, he wanted, in his turn, to kiss his daughter, and with his outstretched mouth he gave it very soft little strokes on the nose.

Christiane, her heart shriveled up by this caress, gazed at both of them there by her side, at her daughter and at him — him!

He soon wanted to carry the infant back to its cradle.

“No,” said she, “let me have it a few minutes longer, that I may feel it close to my face. Don’t speak to me any more — don’t move — leave us alone, and wait.”

She passed one of her arms over the body hidden under the swaddling-clothes, put her forehead close to the little grinning face, shut her eyes, and no longer stirred, or thought about anything.

But, at the end of a few minutes, William softly touched her on the shoulder: “Come, my darling, you must be reasonable! No emotions, you know, no emotions!”

Thereupon, he bore away their little daughter, while the mother’s eyes followed the child till it had disappeared behind the curtain of the bed.

After that, he came back to her: “Then it is understood that I am to bring Madame Honorat to you tomorrow morning, to keep you company?”

She replied in a firm tone: “Yes, my dear, you may send her to me — tomorrow morning.”

And she stretched herself out in the bed, fatigued, worn out, perhaps a little less unhappy.

Her father and her brother came to see her in the evening, and told her news about the locality — the precipitate departure of Professor Cloche in search of his daughter, and the conjectures with reference to the Duchess de Ramas, who was no longer to be seen, and who was also supposed to have started on Mazelli’s track. Gontran laughed at these adventures, and drew a comic moral from the occurrences:

“The history of those spas is incredible. They are the only fairylands left upon the earth! In two months more things happen in them than in the rest of the universe during the remainder of the year. One might say with truth that the springs are not mineralized but bewitched. And it is everywhere the same, at Aix, Royat, Vichy, Luchon, and also at the sea-baths, at Dieppe, Étretat, Trouville, Biarritz, Cannes, and Nice. You meet there specimens of all kinds of people, of every social grade — admirable adventures, a mixture of races and people not to be found elsewhere, and marvelous incidents. Women play pranks there with facility and charming promptitude. At Paris one resists temptation — at the waters one falls; there you are! Some men find fortune at them, like Andermatt; others find death, like Aubry-Pasteur; others find worse even than that — and get married there — like myself and Paul. Isn’t it queer and funny, this sort of thing? You have heard about Paul’s intended marriage — have you not?”

She murmured: “Yes; William told me about it a little while ago.”

Gontran went on: “He is right, quite right. She is a peasant’s daughter. Well, what of that? She is better than an adventurer’s daughter or a daughter who’s too short. I knew Paul. He would have ended by marrying a streetwalker, provided she resisted him for six months. And to resist him it needed a jade or an innocent. He has lighted on the innocent. So much the better for him!”

Christiane listened, and every word, entering through her ears, went straight to her heart, and inflicted on her pain, horrible pain.

Closing her eyes, she said: “I am very tired. I would like to have a little rest.”

They embraced her and went out.

She could not sleep, so wakeful was her mind, active and racked with harrowing thoughts. That idea that he no longer loved her at all became so intolerable that, were it not for the presence of this woman, this nurse nodding asleep in the armchair, she would have got up, opened the window, and flung herself out on the steps of the hotel. A very thin ray of moonlight penetrated through an opening in the curtains, and formed a round bright spot on the floor. She observed it; and in a moment a crowd of memories rushed together into her brain: the lake, the wood, that first “I love you,” scarcely heard, so agitating, at Tournoel, and all their caresses, in the evening, beside the shadowy paths, and the road from La Roche Pradière.

Suddenly, she saw this white road, on a night when the heavens were filled with stars, and he, Paul, with his arm round a woman’s waist, kissing her at every step they walked. It was Charlotte! He pressed her against him, smiled as he knew how to smile, murmured in her ear sweet words, such as he knew how to utter, then flung himself on his knees and kissed the ground in front of her, just as he had kissed it in front of herself! It was so hard, so hard for her to bear, that turning round and hiding her face in the pillow, she burst out sobbing. She almost shrieked, so much did despair rend her soul. Every beat of her heart, which jumped into her throat, which throbbed in her temples, sent forth from her one word— “Paul — Paul — Paul” — endlessly re-echoed. She stopped up her ears with her hands in order to hear nothing more, plunged her head under the sheets; but then his name sounded in the depths of her bosom with every pant of her tormented heart.

The nurse, waking up, asked of her: “Are you worse, Madame?”

Christiane turned round, her face covered with tears, and murmured: “No, I was asleep — I was dreaming — I was frightened.”

Then, she begged of her to light two wax-candles, so that the ray of moonlight might be no longer visible. Toward morning, however, she slumbered.

She had been asleep for a few hours when Andermatt came in, bringing with him Madame Honorât. The fat lady, immediately adopting a familiar tone, questioned her like a doctor; then, satisfied with her answers, said: “Come, come! you’re going on very nicely!” Then she took off her hat, her gloves, and her shawl, and, addressing the nurse: “You may go, my girl. You will come when we ring for you.” Christiane, already inflamed with dislike to the woman, said to her husband: “Give me my daughter for a little while.”

As on the previous day, William carried the child to her, tenderly embracing it as he did so, and placed it upon the pillow. And, as on the previous day, too, when she felt close to her cheek, through the wrappings, the heat of this little stranger’s body, imprisoned in linen, she was suddenly penetrated with a grateful sense of peace.

Then, all at once, the baby began to cry, screaming out in a shrill and piercing voice. “She wants nursing,” said Andermatt.

He rang, and the wet-nurse appeared, a big red woman, with a mouth like an ogress, full of large, shining teeth, which almost terrified Christiane. And from the open body of her dress she drew forth a breast, soft and heavy with milk. And when Christiane beheld her daughter drinking, she felt a longing to snatch away and take back the baby, moved by a certain sense of jealousy. Madame Honorat now gave directions to the wet-nurse, who went off, carrying the baby in her arms. Andermatt, in his turn, went out, and the two women were left alone together.

Christiane did not know how to speak of what tortured her soul, trembling lest she might give way to too much emotion, lose her head, burst into tears, and betray herself. But Madame Honorat began to babble of her own accord, without having been asked a single question. When she had related all the scandalous stories that were circulating through the neighborhood, she came to the Oriol family: “They are good people,” said she, “very good people. If you had known the mother, what a worthy, brave woman she was! She was worth ten women, Madame. The girls take after her, for that matter.” Then, as she was passing on to another topic, Christiane asked: “Which of the two do you prefer, Louise or Charlotte?”

“Oh! for my own part, Madame. I prefer Louise, your brother’s intended wife; she is more sensible, more steady. She is a woman of order. But my husband likes the other better. Men you know, have tastes different from ours.”

She ceased speaking. Christiane, whose strength was giving way, faltered: “My brother has often met his betrothed at your house.”

“Oh! yes, Madame — I believe really every day. Everything was brought about at my house, everything! As for me, 1 let them talk, these young people, I understood the thing thoroughly. But what truly gave me pleasure was when I saw that M. Paul was getting smitten by the younger one.”

Then, Christiane, in an almost inaudible voice: “Is he deeply in love with her?”

“Ah! Madame, is he in love with her? He had lost his head about her some time since. And then, when the Italian — he who ran off with Doctor Cloche’s daughter — kept hanging about the girl a little, it was something worth seeing and watching —

I thought they were going to fight! Ah! if you had seen M. Paul’s eyes. And he looked upon her as if she were a holy Virgin, nothing less — it’s a pleasant thing to see people so much in love as that!”

Thereupon, Christiane asked her about all that had taken place in her presence, about all they had said, about all they had done, about their promenades in the glen of Sans-Souci, where he had so often told her of his love for her. She put unexpected questions, which astonished the fat lady, about matters that nobody would have dreamed of, for she was constantly making comparisons; she recalled a thousand details of what had occurred the year before, all Paul’s delicate gallantries, his thoughtfulness about her, his ingenious devices to please her, all that display of charming attentions and tender anxieties which on the part of a man show an imperious desire to win a woman’s affections; and she wanted to find out whether he had manifested the same affectionate interest toward the other, whether he had commenced afresh this siege of a soul with the same ardor, with the same enthusiasm, with the same irresistible passion.

And every time she recognized a little circumstance, a little trait, one of those nothings which cause such exquisite bliss, one of those disquieting surprises which cause the heart to beat fast, and of which Paul was so prodigal when he loved, Christiane, as she lay prostrate in the bed, gave utterance to a little “Ah!” expressive of keen suffering.

Amazed at this strange exclamation, Madame Honorat declared more emphatically: “Why, yes. ’Tis as I tell you, exactly as I tell you. I never saw a man so much in love!”

“Has he recited verses to her?”

“I believe so indeed, Madame, and very pretty ones, too!”

And, when they had relapsed into silence, nothing more could be heard save the monotonous and soothing song of the nurse as she rocked the baby to sleep in the adjoining room.

Steps were drawing near in the corridor outside. Doctors Mas-Roussel and Latonne had come to visit their patient. They found her agitated, not quite so well as she had been on the previous day.

When they had left, Andermatt opened the door again, and without coming in: “Doctor Black would like to see you. Will you see him?”

She exclaimed, as she raised herself up in the bed: “No — no — I will not — no!”

William came over to her, looking quite astounded: “But listen to me now — it would only be right — it is his due — you ought to!”

She looked, with her wide-open eyes and quivering lips, as if she had lost her reason. She kept repeating in a piercing voice, so loud that it must have penetrated through the walls: “No! — no! — never!” And then, no longer knowing what she said, and pointing with outstretched arm toward Madame Honorat, who was standing in the center of the apartment:

“I do not want her either! — send her away! — 1 don’t want to see her! — send her away!”

Then he rushed to his wife’s side, took her in his arms, and kissed her on the forehead: “My little Christiane, be calm! What is the matter with you?

—— come now, be calm!”

She had by this time lost the power of raising her voice. The tears gushed from her eyes.

“Send them all away,” said she, “and remain alone with me!”

He went across, in a distracted frame of mind, to the doctor’s wife, and gently pushing her toward the door: “Leave us for a few minutes, pray. It is the fever — the milk-fever. I will calm her. I will look for you again by and by.”

When he came back to the bedside Christiane was lying down, weeping quietly, without moving in any way, quite prostrated.

And then, for the first time in his life, he, too, began to weep.

In fact, the milk-fever had broken out during the night, and delirium supervened. After some hours of extreme excitement, the recently delivered woman suddenly began to speak.

The Marquis and Andermatt, who had resolved to remain near her, and who passed the time playing cards, counting the tricks in hushed tones, imagined that she was calling them, and, rising up, approached the bed. She did not see them; she did not recognize them. Intensely pale, on her white pillow, with her fair tresses hanging loose over her shoulders, she was gazing, with her clear blue eyes, into that unknown, mysterious, and fantastic world, in which dwell the insane.

Her hands, stretched over the bedclothes, stirred now and then, agitated by rapid and involuntary movements, tremblings, and starts.

She did not, at first, appear to be talking to anyone, but to be seeing things and telling what she saw. And the things she said seemed disconnected, incomprehensible. She found a rock too high to jump off. She was afraid of a sprain, and then she was not on intimate terms enough with the man who reached out his arms toward her. Then she spoke about perfumes. She was apparently trying to remember some forgotten phrases. “What can be sweeter? This intoxicates one like wine — wine intoxicates the mind, but perfume intoxicates the imagination. With perfume you taste the very essence, the pure essence of things and of the universe — you taste the flowers — the trees — the grass of the fields —— you can even distinguish the soul of the dwellings of olden days which sleeps in the old furniture, the old carpets, and the old curtains.” Then her face contracted as if she had undergone a long spell of fatigue. She was ascending a hillside slowly, heavily, and was saying to some one: “Oh! carry me once more, I beg of you. I am going to die here! I can walk no farther. Carry me as you did above the gorges. Do you remember? — how you loved me!” Then she uttered a cry of anguish — a look of horror came into her eyes. She saw in front of her a dead animal, and she was imploring to have it taken away without giving her pain. The Marquis said in a whisper to his son-in-law: “She is thinking about an ass that we came across on our way back from La Nugère.” And now she was addressing this dead beast, consoling it, telling it that she, too, was very unhappy, because she had been abandoned.

Then, on a sudden, she refused to do something required of her. She cried: “Oh! no, not that! Oh! it is you, you who want me to drag this cart!” Then she panted, as if indeed she were dragging A vehicle along. She wept, moaned, uttered exclamations, and always, during a period of half an hour, she was climbing up this hillside, dragging after her with horrible efforts the ass’s cart, beyond a doubt.

And some one was harshly beating her, for she said: “Oh! how you hurt me! At least, don’t beat me! I will walk — but don’t beat me any more, I entreat you! I’ll do whatever you wish, but don’t beat me any more!”

Then her anguish gradually abated, and all she did was to go on quietly talking in her incoherent fashion till daybreak. After that, she became drowsy, and ended by going to sleep.

Until the following day, however, her mental powers remained torpid, somewhat wavering, fleeting. She could not immediately find the words she wanted, and fatigued herself terribly in searching for them. But, after a night of rest, she completely regained possession of herself.

Nevertheless, she felt changed, as if this crisis had transformed her soul. She suffered less and thought more. The dreadful occurrences, really so recent, seemed to her to have receded into a past already far off; and she regarded them with a clearness of conception with which her mind had never been illuminated before. This light, which had suddenly dawned on her brain, and which comes to certain beings in certain hours of suffering, showed her life, men, things, the entire earth and all that it contains as she had never seen them before.

Then, more than on the evening when she had felt herself so much alone in the universe in her room, after her return from the lake of Tazenat, she looked upon herself as utterly abandoned in existence. She realized that all human beings walk along side by side in the midst of circumstances without anything ever truly uniting two persons together. She learned from the treason of him in whom she had reposed her entire confidence that the others, all the others, would never again be to her anything but indifferent neighbors in that journey short or long, sad or gay, that followed tomorrows no one could foresee.

She comprehended that even in the clasp of this man’s arms, when she believed that she was intermingling with him, entering into him, when she believed that their flesh and their souls had become only one flesh and one soul, they had only drawn a little nearer to one another, so as to bring into contact the impenetrable envelopes in which mysterious nature has isolated and shut up each human creature. And she saw as well that nobody has ever been able, or ever will be able, to break through that invisible barrier which places living beings as far from each other as the stars of heaven. She divined the impotent effort, ceaseless since the first days of the world, the indefatigable effort of men and women to tear off the sheath in which their souls forever imprisoned, forever solitary, are struggling — an effort of arms, of lips, of eyes, of mouths, of trembling, naked flesh, an effort of love, which exhausts itself in kisses, to finish only by giving life to some other forlorn being.

Then an uncontrollable desire to gaze on her daughter took possession of her. She asked for it, and when it was brought to her, she begged to have it stripped, for as yet she only knew its face.

The wet-nurse thereupon unfastened the swaddling-clothes, and discovered the poor little body of the newborn infant agitated by those vague movements which life puts into these rough sketches of humanity. Christiane touched it with a timid, trembling hand, then wanted to kiss the stomach, the back, the legs, the feet, and then she stared at the child full of fantastic thoughts.

Two beings came together, loved one another with rapturous passion; and from their embrace, this being was born. It was he and she intermingled; until the death of this little child, it was he and she, living again both together; it was a little of him, and a little of her, with an unknown something which make it different from them. It reproduced them both in the form of its body as well as in that of its mind, in its features, its gestures, its eyes, its movements, its tastes, its passions, even in the sound of its voice and its gait in walking, and yet it would be a new being!

They were separated now — he and she — forever! Never again would their eyes blend in one of those outbursts of love which make the human race indestructible. And pressing the child against her heart, she murmured: “Adieu! adieu!” It was to him that she was saying “adieu” in her baby’s ear, the brave and sorrowing “adieu” of a woman who would yet have much to suffer, always, it might be, but who would know how to hide her tears.

“Ha! ha!” cried William through the half-open door. “1 catch you there! Will you be good enough to give me back my daughter?”

Running toward the bed, he seized the little one in his hands already practiced in the art of handling it, and lifting it over his head, he went on repeating: “Good day, Mademoiselle Andermatt — good day, Mademoiselle Andermatt.”

Christiane was thinking: “Here, then, is my husband!”

And she contemplated him, with eyes as astonished as if they were beholding him for the first time. This was he, the man who ought to be, according to human ideas of religion, of society, the other half of her — more than that, her master, the master of her days and of her nights, of her heart and of her body! She felt almost a desire to smile, so strange did this appear to her at the moment, for between her and him no bond could ever exist, none of those bonds alas! so quickly broken, but which seem eternal, ineffably sweet, almost divine.

No remorse even came to her for having deceived him, for having betrayed him. She was surprised at this, and asked herself why it was. Why? No doubt, there was too great a difference between them, they were too far removed from one another, of races too widely dissimilar. He did not understand her at all; she did not understand him at all. And yet he was good, devoted, complaisant.

But only perhaps beings of the same shape, of the same nature, of the same moral essence can feel themselves attached to one another by the sacred bond of voluntary duty.

They dressed the baby again. William sat down. “Listen, my darling,” said he; “I don’t venture to announce Doctor Black’s visit to you, since you have been so nice toward myself. There is, however, one person whom I would very much like you to see — I mean Doctor Bonnefille.”

Then, for the first time, she laughed, with a colorless sort of laugh, which fixed itself on her lips, without going near her heart; and she asked:

“Doctor Bonnefille! what a miracle! So then you are reconciled?”

“Why, yes! Listen! I am going to tell you, as a secret, a great bit of news. I have just bought up the old establishment. I have all the district now. Hey! what a victory. That poor Doctor Bonnefille knew it before anybody, be it understood. So then he has been sly. He came every day to obtain information as to how you were, leaving his card with a word of sympathy written on it. For my part, I responded to these advances with a single visit; and at present we are on excellent terms.”

“Let him come,” said Christiane, “whenever he likes. I will be glad to see him.”

“Good. Thank you. I’ll bring him here to you tomorrow morning. I need scarcely tell you that Paul is constantly asking me to convey to you a thousand compliments from him, and he inquires a great deal about the little one. He is very anxious to see her.” In spite of her resolutions she felt a sense of oppression. She was able, however, to say: “You will thank him on my behalf.”

Andermatt rejoined: “He was very uneasy to learn whether you had been told about his intended marriage. I informed him that you had; then he asked me several times what you thought about it.”

She exerted her strength to the utmost, and felt able to murmur: “You will tell him that I entirely approve of it.”

William, with cruel persistency, went on: “He wishes also to know for certain what name you mean to call your daughter. I told him we were hesitating between Marguerite and Genevieve.”

“I have changed my mind,” said she. “I intend to call her Arlette.”

Formerly, in the early days of her pregnancy, she had discussed with Paul the name which they ought to select whether for a son or for a daughter; and for a daughter they had remained undecided between Genevieve and Marguerite. She no longer wanted these two names.

William repeated: “Arlette! Arlette! That’s a very nice name — you are right. For my part, I would have liked to call her Christiane, like you. I adore that name — Christiane!”

She sighed deeply: “Oh! it forebodes too much suffering to bear the name of the Crucified.”

He reddened, never having dreamed of this comparison, and rising up: “Besides, Arlette is very nice. By-bye, my darling.”

As soon as he had left the room, she called the wet-nurse, and directed her for the future to place the cradle beside the bed.

When the little couch in the form of a wherry, always rocking, and carrying its white curtain like a sail on its mast of twisted copper, had been rolled close to the big bed, Christiane stretched out her hand to the sleeping infant, and she said in a very hushed voice: “Go by-bye, my baby! You will never find anyone who will love you as much as I.”

She passed the next few days in a state of tranquil melancholy, thinking a great deal, building up within herself a resisting soul, an energetic heart, in order to resume her life again in a few weeks. Her chief occupation now consisted in gazing into the eyes of her child, seeking to surprise in them a first look, but only seeing there two little bluish caverns invariably turned toward the sunlight coming in through the window.

And she experienced a feeling of profound sadness as she reflected that these eyes now closed in sleep would look out on the world, as she herself had looked on it, through the illusion of those secret dreamings which make the souls of young women trustful and joyous. They would love all that she had loved, the beautiful bright days, the flowers, the wood, and alas! living beings too! They would, no doubt, love a man! They would carry in their depths his image, well known, cherished, would see it when he would be far away, would be inflamed on seeing him again. And then — and then they would learn to weep! Tears, horrible tears, would flow over these little cheeks. And the frightful sufferings of love betrayed would render them unrecognizable, those poor wandering eyes which would be blue.

And she wildly embraced the child, saying to it: “Love me alone, my child!”

At length, one day, Professor Mas-Roussel, who came every morning to see her, declared: “You can soon get up for a little, Madame.”

Andermatt, when the physician had left, said to his wife: “It is very unfortunate that you are not quite well, for we have a very interesting experiment to-day at the establishment. Doctor Latonne has performed a real miracle with Père Clovis by subjecting him to his system of self-moving gymnastics. Just imagine! This old vagabond is now able to walk as well as anyone. The progress of the cure, moreover, is manifest after each exhibition!”

To please him, she asked: “And are you going to have a public exhibition?”

“Yes, and no. We are having an exhibition before the medical men and a few friends.”

“At what hour?”

“Three o’clock.”

“Will M. Bretigny be there?”

“Yes, yes. He promised me that he would come to it. From a medical point of view, it is exceedingly curious.”

“Well,” she said, “as I’ll just have risen myself at that time, you will ask M. Bretigny to come and see me. He will keep me company while you are looking at the experiment.”

“Yes, my darling.”

“You won’t forget?”

“No, no. Make your mind easy.”

And he went off in search of those who were to witness the exhibition.

After having been imposed upon by the Oriols at the time of the first treatment of the paralytic, he had in his turn imposed upon the credulity of invalids — so easy to get the better of, when it is a question of curing. And now he imposed upon himself with the farce of this cure, talking about it so frequently, with so much ardor and such an air of conviction that it would have been hard to determine whether he believed or disbelieved in it.

About three o’clock, all the persons whom he had induced to attend found themselves gathered together before the door of the establishment, expecting Père Clovis’s arrival. He made his appearance, leaning on two walking-sticks, always dragging his legs after him, and bowing politely to everyone as he passed.

The two Oriols followed him, together with the two young girls. Paul and Gontran accompanied their intended wives.

In the great hall where the articulated instruments were fixed, Doctor Latonne was waiting, and killed time by chatting with Andermatt and Doctor Honorat.

When he saw Père Clovis, a smile of delight passed over his clean-shaven lips. He asked: “Well! how are we going on to-day?”

“Oh! all right, all right.”

Petrus Martel and Saint Landri presented themselves. They wanted to satisfy their minds. The first believed; the second doubted. Behind them, people saw with astonishment Doctor Bonnefille coming up, saluting his rival, and extending his hand toward Andermatt. Doctor Black was the last to arrive.

“Well, Messieurs and Mesdemoiselles,” said Doctor Latonne, as he bowed to Louise and Charlotte Oriol, “you are going to witness a very curious phenomenon. Observe first, before the experiment, this worthy fellow walking a little, but very little. Can you walk without your sticks, Père Clovis?”

“Oh! no, Mochieu!”

“Good, then let us begin.”

The old fellow was hoisted on the armchair; his legs were strapped to the movable feet of the sitting-machine; then, at the command of the inspector: “Go quietly!” the attendant, with bare arms, turned the handle.

Thereupon, the right knee of the vagabond was seen rising up, stretching out, bending, then moving forward again; after that, the left knee did the same; and Père Clovis, seized with a sudden delight, began to laugh, while he repeated with his head and his long, white beard all the movements imposed on his legs.

The four physicians and Andermatt, stooping over him, examined him with the gravity of augurs, while Colosse exchanged sly winks with the old chap.

As the door had been left open, other persons kept constantly crowding in, and convinced and anxious bathers pressed forward to behold the experiment.

“Quicker!” said Doctor Latonne; and, in obedience to his command, the man who worked the handle turned it with greater energy. The old fellow’s legs began to go at a running pace, and he, seized with irresistible gaiety, like a child being tickled, laughed as loudly as ever he could, moving his head about wildly. And, in the midst of his peals of laughter, he kept repeating: “What a rigolo! what a rigolo!” having, no doubt, picked up this word from the mouth of some foreigner.

Colosse, in his turn, broke out, and, stamping on the ground with his foot and striking his thighs with his hands, he exclaimed: “Ha! bougrrre of a Cloviche! bougrrre of a Cloviche!”

“Enough!” was the inspector’s next command.

The vagabond was unfastened, and the physicians drew apart in order to verify the result.

Then Père Clovis was seen rising from the armchair, stepping on the ground, and walking. He proceeded with short steps, it was true, quite bent, and grimacing from fatigue at every effort, but still he walked!

Doctor Bonnefille was the first to declare: “This is quite a remarkable case!” Doctor Black immediately improved upon his brother-physician. Doctor Honorat, alone, said nothing.

Gontran whispered in Paul’s ear: “I don’t understand. Look at their heads. Are they dupes or humbugs?”

But Andermatt was speaking. He told the history of this cure since the first day, the relapse, and the final recovery which was declared to be settled and absolute.

He gaily added: “If our patient goes back a little every winter, we’ll cure him again every summer.”

Then he pompously eulogized the waters of Mont Oriol, extolled their properties, all their properties: “For my own part,” said he; “I have had a proof of their efficacy in the case of a being who is very dear to me; and, if my family is not extinct, it is to Mont Oriol that I will owe it.”

But, all at once, he had a flash of recollection. He had promised his wife a visit from Paul Bretigny. He was filled with regret for his forgetfulness, as he was most anxious to gratify her every wish. Accordingly he glanced around him, espied Paul, and coming up to him: “My dear friend, I completely forgot to tell you that Christiane is expecting you at this moment.”

Bretigny said falteringly: “Me — at this moment?”

“Yes, she has got up to-day; and she desires to see you before anyone. Hurry then as quickly as possible, and excuse me.”

Paul directed his steps toward the hotel, his heart throbbing with emotion. On his way he met the Marquis de Ravenel, who said to him:

“My daughter is up, and is surprised at not having seen you yet.”

He halted, however, on the first steps of the staircase in order to consider what he would say to her. How would she receive him? Would she be alone? If she spoke about his marriage, what reply should he make?

Since he had heard of her confinement, he could not think about her without groaning, so uneasy did he feel; and the thought of their first meeting, every time it floated through his mind, made him suddenly redden or grow pale with anguish. He had also thought with deep anxiety of this unknown child, of which he was the father; and he remained harassed by a desire to see it, mingled with a dread of looking at it. He felt himself sunk in one of those moral foulnesses which stain a man’s conscience up to the hour of his death. But he feared above all the glance of this woman, for whom his love had been so fierce and so short-lived.

Would she meet him with reproaches, with tears, or with disdain? Would she receive him, only to drive him away?

And what attitude ought he to assume toward her? Humble, crushed, suppliant, or cold? Should he explain himself or should he listen without replying? Ought he to sit down or to remain standing?

And when the child was shown to him, what should he do? What should he say? With what feeling should he appear to be agitated?

Before the door he stopped again, and at the moment when he was on the point of ringing, he noticed that his hand was trembling. However, he placed his finger on the little ivory button, and he heard the sound of the electric bell coming from the interior of the apartment.

A female servant opened the door, and admitted him. And, at the drawingroom door, he saw Christiane, at the end of the second room, lying on her long chair with her eyes fixed upon him.

These two rooms seemed to him interminable as he was passing through them. He felt himself tottering. He was afraid of knocking against the seats, and he did not venture to look down toward his feet in order to avoid lowering his eyes. She did not make a single gesture, or utter a single word. She waited till he was close beside her. Her right hand remained stretched out over her robe and her left leaned over the side of the cradle, covered all round with its curtains.

When he was three paces away from her he stopped, not knowing what best to do. The chambermaid had closed the door after him.

They were alone!

Then, he felt a longing to sink upon his knees, and implore her pardon. But she slowly raised the hand which had rested on her robe, and, extending it slightly toward him, said, “Good day,” in a grave tone.

He did not venture to touch her fingers, which, however, he brushed with his lips, while he bowed to her.

She added: “Sit down.” And he sat down on a lower chair, close to her feet.

He felt that he ought to speak, but he could not find a word or an idea, and he dared not even look at her. However, he ended by stammering out: “Your husband forgot to let me know that you were waiting for me; but for that, I would have come sooner.”

She replied: “Oh! it matters little, since we were bound to see one another again — a little sooner —— a little later!”

As she added nothing more, he hastened to say in an inquiring tone: “I hope you are getting on well by this time?”

“Thanks. As well as one can get on, after such shocks!”

She was very pale and thin, but prettier than before her confinement. Her eyes especially had gained a depth of expression which he had never seen in them before. They seemed to have acquired a darker shade, a blue less clear, less transparent, more intense. Her hands were so white that their flesh looked like that of a corpse.

She went on: “Those are hours very hard to live through. But, when one has suffered thus, one feels strong till the end of one’s days.”

Much affected, he murmured: “Yes; they are terrible experiences!”

She repeated, like an echo: “Terrible.”

For some moments there had been light movements in the cradle — the all but imperceptible sounds of an infant awakening from sleep. Bretigny could not longer avert his gaze, preyed upon by a melancholy, morbid yearning which gradually grew stronger, tortured by the desire to behold what lived within there.

Then he observed that the curtains of the tiny bed were fastened from top to bottom with the gold pins which Christiane was accustomed to wear in her corsage. Often had he amused himself in bygone days by taking them out and pinning them again on the shoulders of his beloved, those fine pins with crescent-shaped heads. He understood what she meant; and a poignant emotion seized him, made him feel shriveled up before this barrier of golden spikes which forever separated him from this child.

A little cry, a shrill plaint arose in this white prison. Christiane quickly rocked the wherry, and in a rather abrupt tone:

“I must ask your pardon for allowing you so little time; but I must look after my daughter.”

He rose, and once more kissed the hand which she extended toward him; and, as he was on the point of leaving, she said:

“I pray that you may be happy.”

THE END