from her.

But Pascal rewarded her very ill. Afterward he would be sorry, and
regret his outbursts. But in the state of feverish desperation in which
he lived this did not prevent him from again flying into a passion with
her, at the slightest cause of dissatisfaction. One evening, after he
had been listening to his mother talking for an interminable time with
her in the kitchen, he cried in sudden fury:

"Martine, I do not wish her to enter La Souleiade again, do you hear? If
you ever let her into the house again I will turn you out!"

She listened to him in surprise. Never, during the thirty-two years in
which she had been in his service, had he threatened to dismiss her in
this way. Big tears came to her eyes.

"Oh, monsieur! you would not have the courage to do it! And I would not
go. I would lie down across the threshold first."

He already regretted his anger, and he said more gently:

"The thing is that I know perfectly well what is going on. She comes
to indoctrinate you, to put you against me, is it not so? Yes, she is
watching my papers; she wishes to steal and destroy everything up there
in the press. I know her; when she wants anything, she never gives up
until she gets it. Well, you can tell her that I am on my guard; that
while I am alive she shall never even come near the press. And the key
is here in my pocket."

In effect, all his former terror--the terror of the scientist who feels
himself surrounded by secret enemies, had returned. Ever since he
had been living alone in the deserted house he had had a feeling of
returning danger, of being constantly watched in secret. The circle had
narrowed, and if he showed such anger at these attempts at invasion,
if he repulsed his mother's assaults, it was because he did not deceive
himself as to her real plans, and he was afraid that he might yield. If
she were there she would gradually take possession of him, until she had
subjugated him completely. Therefore his former tortures returned,
and he passed the days watching; he shut up the house himself in the
evening, and he would often rise during the night, to assure himself
that the locks were not being forced. What he feared was that the
servant, won over by his mother, and believing she was securing his
eternal welfare, would open the door to Mme. Felicite. In fancy he saw
the papers blazing in the fireplace; he kept constant guard over them,
seized again by a morbid love, a torturing affection for thi