is excursion proved perfect agony. While his wife basked in the sun
on the pavement, trailing her skirt with nonchalance and impudence,
shameless and unconcerned, he followed behind her, pale and shuddering,
repeating that it was all over, that he would be unable to save himself
and would be guillotined. Each step he saw her take, seemed to him a
step nearer punishment. Fright gave him a sort of blind conviction, and
the slightest movement of the young woman added to his certainty. He
followed her, he went where she went, as a man goes to the scaffold.

Suddenly on reaching the former Place Saint-Michel, Therese
advanced towards a cafe that then formed the corner of the Rue
Monsieur-le-Prince. There she seated herself in the centre of a group of
women and students, at one of the tables on the pavement, and familiarly
shook hands with all this little crowd. Then she called for absinthe.

She seemed quite at ease, chatting with a fair young man who no doubt
had been waiting for her some time. Two girls came and leant over
the table where she sat, addressing her affectionately in their husky
voices. Around her, women were smoking cigarettes, men were embracing
women in the open street, before the passers-by, who never even turned
their heads. Low words and hoarse laughter reached Laurent, who remained
motionless in a doorway on the opposite side of the street.

When Therese had finished her absinthe, she rose, and leaning on the arm
of the fair young man, went down the Rue de la Harpe. Laurent followed
them as far as the Rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts, where he noticed them enter
a lodging-house. He remained in the middle of the street with his eyes
on the front of the building. Presently his wife showed herself for
an instant at an open window on the second floor, and he fancied he
perceived the hands of the pale young man encircling her waist. Then,
the window closed with a sharp clang.

Laurent understood. Without waiting a moment longer, he tranquilly took
himself off reassured and happy.

"Bah!" said he to himself, as he went towards the quays. "It's better,
after all, that she should have a sweetheart. That will occupy her mind,
and prevent her thinking of injuring me. She's deucedly more clever than
I am."

What astonished him, was that he had not been the first to think of
plunging into vice, which might have driven away his terror. But his
thoughts had never turned in that direction, and, moreover, he had not
the