n her an exasperation which would suddenly prompt her to turn
round, should she guess that they were smiling at one another behind
her. She could divine the times when their love was at its height by
the atmosphere wafted around her. It was then that her gloom became
deeper, and her agonies were those of nervous women at the approach of
a terrible storm.

Every one about Helene now looked on Jeanne as saved, and she herself
had slowly come to recognize this as a certainty. Thus it happened
that Jeanne's fits were at last regarded by her as the bad humors of a
spoilt child, and as of little or no consequence. A craving to live
sprang up within her after the six weeks of anguish which she had just
spent. Her daughter was now well able to dispense with her care for
hours; and for her, who had so long become unconscious of life, these
hours opened up a vista of delight, of peace, and pleasure. She
rummaged in her drawers, and made joyous discoveries of forgotten
things; she plunged into all sorts of petty tasks, in the endeavor to
resume the happy course of her daily existence. And in this upwelling
of life her love expanded, and the society of Henri was the reward she
allowed herself for the intensity of her past sufferings. In the
shelter of that room they deemed themselves beyond the world's ken,
and every hindrance in their path was forgotten. The child, to whom
their love had proved a terror, alone remained a bar between them.

Jeanne became, indeed, a veritable scourge to their affections. An
ever-present barrier, with her eyes constantly upon them, she
compelled them to maintain a continued restraint, an affectation of
indifference, with the result that their hearts were stirred with even
greater motion than before. For days they could not exchange a word;
they knew intuitively that she was listening even when she was
seemingly wrapped in slumber. One evening, when Helene had quitted the
room with Henri, to escort him to the front door, Jeanne burst out
with the cry, "Mamma! mamma!" in a voice shrill with rage. Helene was
forced to return, for she heard the child leap from her bed; and she
met her running towards her, shivering with cold and passion. Jeanne
would no longer let her remain away from her. From that day forward
they could merely exchange a clasp of the hand on meeting and parting.
Madame Deberle was now spending a month at the seaside, and the
doctor, though he had all his time at his own command, dared