account.

"I found my husband just the same little suffering boy whose bed I
had shared when I was six years old. He was just as frail, just as
plaintive, and he still had that insipid odour of a sick child that had
been so repugnant to me previously. I am relating all this so that you
may not be jealous. I was seized with a sort of disgust. I remembered
the physic I had drank. I got as far away from him as the bed would
allow, and I passed terrible nights. But you, you----"

Therese drew herself up, bending backward, her fingers imprisoned in the
massive hands of Laurent, gazing at his broad shoulders, and enormous
neck.

"You, I love you," she continued. "I loved you from the day Camille
pushed you into the shop. You have perhaps no esteem for me, because I
gave way at once. Truly, I know not how it happened. I am proud. I am
passionate. I would have liked to have beaten you, the first day, when
you kissed me. I do not know how it was I loved you; I hated you rather.
The sight of you irritated me, and made me suffer. When you were there,
my nerves were strained fit to snap. My head became quite empty. I was
ready to commit a crime.

"Oh! how I suffered! And I sought this suffering. I waited for you to
arrive. I loitered round your chair, so as to move in your breath, to
drag my clothes over yours. It seemed as though your blood cast puffs of
heat on me as I passed, and it was this sort of burning cloud in which
you were enveloped, that attracted me, and detained me beside you in
spite of my secret revolt. You remember when you were painting here:
a fatal power attracted me to your side, and I breathed your air with
cruel delight. I know I seemed to be begging for kisses, I felt ashamed
of my bondage, I felt I should fall, if you were to touch me. But I gave
way to my cowardice, I shivered with cold, waiting until you chose to
take me in your arms."

When Therese ceased speaking, she was quivering, as though proud at
being avenged. In this bare and chilly room were enacted scenes of
burning lust, sinister in their brutality.

On her part Therese seemed to revel in daring. The only precaution she
would take when expecting her lover was to tell her aunt she was going
upstairs to rest. But then, when he was there she never bothered about
avoiding noise, walking about and talking. At first this terrified
Laurent.

"For God's sake," he whispered, "don't make so much noise. Madame Raquin
will hear."

Therese woul