rectitude, and the dear presence, physical
and mental, which had now become as necessary to his life as the light
of day itself. She must leave him, and he must find the strength to
die of it. He despised himself for his want of courage, he judged the
situation with terrible clear-sightedness. All was ended. An honorable
existence and a fortune awaited her with her brother; he could not carry
his senile selfishness so far as to keep her any longer in the misery in
which he was, to be scorned and despised. And fainting at the thought of
all he was losing, he swore to himself that he would be strong, that he
would not accept the sacrifice of this child, that he would restore her
to happiness and to life, in her own despite.

And now the struggle of self-abnegation began. Some days passed; he
had demonstrated to her so clearly the rudeness of her "I refuse," on
Maxime's letter, that she had written a long letter to her grandmother,
explaining to her the reasons for her refusal. But still she would not
leave La Souleiade. As Pascal had grown extremely parsimonious, in his
desire to trench as little as possible on the money obtained by the sale
of the jewels, she surpassed herself, eating her dry bread with merry
laughter. One morning he surprised her giving lessons of economy to
Martine. Twenty times a day she would look at him intently and then
throw herself on his neck and cover his face with kisses, to combat the
dreadful idea of a separation, which she saw always in his eyes. Then
she had another argument. One evening after dinner he was seized with a
palpitation of the heart, and almost fainted. This surprised him; he had
never suffered from the heart, and he believed it to be simply a return
of his old nervous trouble. Since his great happiness he had felt less
strong, with an odd sensation, as if some delicate hidden spring had
snapped within him. Greatly alarmed, she hurried to his assistance.
Well! now he would no doubt never speak again of her going away. When
one loved people, and they were ill, one stayed with them to take care
of them.

The struggle thus became a daily, an hourly one. It was a continual
assault made by affection, by devotion, by self-abnegation, in the one
desire for another's happiness. But while her kindness and tenderness
made the thought of her departure only the more cruel for Pascal,
he felt every day more and more strongly the necessity for it. His
resolution was now taken. But he remai