swear that I have told you the truth."

He got up and throwing his table napkin on the table with a movement of
exasperation, he turned round and flung his chair against the wall, and
then went out without another word, while she, uttering a deep sigh, as
if after a first victory, went on in a calm voice: "You must not pay any
attention to what your father has just said, my darlings; he was very
much upset a short time ago, but he will be all right again in a few
days."

Then she talked with the abbe and Miss Smith and had tender, pretty words
for all her children, those sweet, tender mother's ways which unfold
little hearts.

When dinner was over she went into the drawing-room, all her children
following her. She made the elder ones chatter, and when their bedtime
came she kissed them for a long time and then went alone into her room.

She waited, for she had no doubt that the count would come, and she made
up her mind then, as her children were not with her, to protect herself
as a woman of the world as she would protect her life, and in the pocket
of her dress she put the little loaded revolver which she had bought a
few days previously. The hours went by, the hours struck, and every sound
was hushed in the house. Only the cabs, continued to rumble through the
streets, but their noise was only heard vaguely through the shuttered and
curtained windows.

She waited, full of nervous energy, without any fear of him now, ready
for anything, and almost triumphant, for she had found means of torturing
him continually during every moment of his life.

But the first gleam of dawn came in through the fringe at the bottom of
her curtain without his having come into her room, and then she awoke to
the fact, with much amazement, that he was not coming. Having locked and
bolted her door, for greater security, she went to bed at last and
remained there, with her eyes open, thinking and barely understanding it
all, without being able to guess what he was going to do.

When her maid brought her tea she at the same time handed her a letter
from her husband. He told her that he was going to undertake a longish
journey and in a postscript added that his lawyer would provide her with
any sums of money she might require for all her expenses.

III

It was at the opera, between two acts of "Robert the Devil." In the
stalls the men were standing up, with their hats on, their waistcoats cut
very low so as to show a large amount