no one?"

"Nobody at all. She really thought you dead, and when I told her
you were here with me, alive and well, I thought she would go mad
for joy. Do you know, Hector, she's really pretty."

"Yes--not bad."

"And a very good little body, I imagine. She told me some very
touching things. I would wager, my friend, that she don't care so
much for your money as she does for yourself."

Hector smiled superciliously.

"In short, she was anxious to follow me, to see and speak to you.
I had to swear with terrible oaths that she should see you
to-morrow, before she would let me go; not at Paris, as you said
you would never go there, but at Corbeil."

"Ah, as for that--"

"She will be at the station to-morrow at twelve. We will go down
together, and I will take the train for Paris. You can get into
the Corbeil train, and breakfast with Miss Jenny at the hotel of
the Belle Image."

Hector began to offer an objection. Sauvresy stopped him with a
gesture.

"Not a word," said he. "Here is my wife."

XV

On going to bed, that night, the count was less enchanted than ever
with the devotion of his friend Sauvresy. There is not a diamond on
which a spot cannot be found with a microscope.

"Here he is," thought he, "abusing his privileges as the saver of
my life. Can't a man do you a service, without continually making
you feel it? It seems as though because he prevented me from
blowing my brains out, I had somehow become something that belongs
to him! He came very near upbraiding me for Jenny's extravagance.
Where will he stop?"

The next day at breakfast he feigned indisposition so as not to
eat, and suggested to Sauvresy that he would lose the train.

Bertha, as on the evening before, crouched at the window to see
them go away. Her troubles during the past eight-and-forty hours
had been so great that she hardly recognized herself. She scarcely
dared to reflect or to descend to the depths of her heart. What
mysterious power did this man possess, to so violently affect her
life? She wished that he would go, never to return, while at the
same time she avowed to herself that in going he would carry with
him all her thoughts. She struggled under the charm, not knowing
whether she ought to rejoice or grieve at the inexpressible emotions
which agitated her, being irritated to submit to an influence
stronger than her own will.

She decided that to-day she would go down to the drawin