her clothes, but
remained sitting, overwhelmed with grief, on the chair into which she
had dropped. One regret, a great remorse, filled her to the exclusion of
all else. Why had she obeyed him? Why had she consented to leave him?
If she had remained she had the ardent conviction that he would not have
died. She would have lavished so much love, so many caresses upon him,
that she would have cured him. If one was anxious to keep a beloved
being from dying one should remain with him and, if necessary, give
one's heart's blood to keep him alive. It was her own fault if she had
lost him, if she could not now with a caress awaken him from his
eternal sleep. And she thought herself imbecile not to have understood;
cowardly, not to have devoted herself to him; culpable, and to be
forever punished for having gone away when plain common sense, in
default of feeling, ought to have kept her here, bound, as a submissive
and affectionate subject, to the task of watching over her king.

The silence had become so complete, so profound, that Clotilde lifted
her eyes for a moment from Pascal's face to look around the room. She
saw only vague shadows--the two tapers threw two yellow patches on the
high ceiling. At this moment she remembered the letters he had written
to her, so short, so cold; and she comprehended his heroic sacrifice,
the torture it had been to him to silence his heart, desiring to
immolate himself to the end. What strength must he not have required
for the accomplishment of the plan of happiness, sublime and disastrous,
which he had formed for her. He had resolved to pass out of her life in
order to save her from his old age and his poverty; he wished her to be
rich and free, to enjoy her youth, far away from him; this indeed was
utter self-effacement, complete absorption in the love of another. And
she felt a profound gratitude, a sweet solace in the thought, mingled
with a sort of angry bitterness against evil fortune. Then, suddenly,
the happy years of her childhood and her long youth spent beside him who
had always been so kind and so good-humored, rose before her--how he had
gradually won her affection, how she had felt that she was his, after
the quarrels which had separated them for a time, and with what a
transport of joy she had at last given herself to him.

Seven o'clock struck. Clotilde started as the clear tones broke the
profound silence. Who was it that had spoken? Then she remembered, and
she looked at