he room, and was
endeavouring to get out by clawing at the door.

Francois, frightened by Laurent, sprang upon a chair at a bound. With
hair on end and stiffened paws, he looked his new master in the face, in
a harsh and cruel manner. The young man did not like cats, and Francois
almost terrified him. In this moment of excitement and alarm, he
imagined the cat was about to fly in his face to avenge Camille. He
fancied the beast must know everything, that there were thoughts in
his strangely dilated round eyes. The fixed gaze of the animal caused
Laurent to lower his lids. As he was about to give Francois a kick,
Therese exclaimed:

"Don't hurt him."

This sentence produced a strange impression on Laurent, and an absurd
idea got into his head.

"Camille has entered into this cat," thought he. "I shall have to kill
the beast. It looks like a human being."

He refrained from giving the kick, being afraid of hearing Francois
speak to him with the voice of Camille. Then he said to himself that
this animal knew too much, and that he should have to throw it out of
the window. But he had not the pluck to accomplish his design. Francois
maintained a fighting attitude. With claws extended, and back curved
in sullen irritation, he followed the least movement of his enemy with
superb tranquillity. The metallic sparkle of his eyes troubled Laurent,
who hastened to open the dining-room door, and the cat fled with a
shrill mew.

Therese had again seated herself before the extinguished fire. Laurent
resumed his walk from bed to window. It was thus that they awaited
day-light. They did not think of going to bed; their hearts were
thoroughly dead. They had but one, single desire: to leave the room they
were in, and where they were choking. They experienced a real discomfort
in being shut up together, and in breathing the same atmosphere. They
would have liked someone to be there to interrupt their privacy, to
drag them from the cruel embarrassment in which they found themselves,
sitting one before the other without opening their lips, and unable
to resuscitate their love. Their long silences tortured them, silence
loaded with bitter and despairing complaints, with mute reproaches,
which they distinctly heard in the tranquil air.

Day came at last, a dirty, whitish dawn, bringing penetrating cold with
it. When the room had filled with dim light, Laurent, who was shivering,
felt calmer. He looked the portrait of Camille straight i