ed light of the sun, she saw
the locomotive of the express stop, monstrous and docile, on the quay,
and, in the crowd of travellers coming out of the carriages, Jacques
approached her. He was looking at her with that sort of sombre and
violent joy which she had often observed in him. He said:

"At last, here you are. I feared to die before seeing you again. You do
not know, I did not know myself, what torture it is to live a week away
from you. I have returned to the little pavilion of the Via Alfieri. In
the room you know, in front of the old pastel, I have wept for love and
rage."

She looked at him tenderly.

"And I, do you not think that I called you, that I wanted you, that when
alone I extended my arms toward you? I had hidden your letters in the
chiffonier where my jewels are. I read them at night: it was delicious,
but it was imprudent. Your letters were yourself--too much and not
enough."

They traversed the court where fiacres rolled away loaded with boxes.
She asked whether they were to take a carriage.

He made no answer. He seemed not to hear. She said:

"I went to see your house; I did not dare go in. I looked through the
grille and saw windows hidden in rose-bushes in the rear of a yard,
behind a tree, and I said: 'It is there!' I never have been so moved."

He was not listening to her nor looking at her. He walked quickly with
her along the paved street, and through a narrow stairway reached a
deserted street near the station. There, between wood and coal yards,
was a hotel with a restaurant on the first floor and tables on the
sidewalk. Under the painted sign were white curtains at the windows.
Dechartre stopped before the small door and pushed Therese into the
obscure alley. She asked:

"Where are you leading me? What is the time? I must be home at half-past
seven. We are mad."

When they left the house, she said:

"Jacques, my darling, we are too happy; we are robbing life."

CHAPTER XXVI. IN DECHARTRE'S STUDIO

A fiacre brought her, the next day, to a populous street, half sad, half
gay, with walls of gardens in the intervals of new houses, and stopped
at the point where the sidewalk passes under the arcade of a mansion
of the Regency, covered now with dust and oblivion, and fantastically
placed across the street. Here and there green branches lent gayety to
that city corner. Therese, while ringing at the door, saw in the limited
perspective of the houses a pulley at a window and