ing, that neither Lissac nor Vaudrey dared speak. A chill
silence fell upon these three persons.

While Adrienne approached the table upon which the journals were piled,
Guy was the first to force a smile to throw her off the scent; Adrienne
stopped him with a gesture that was intended to express that to
undeceive her, that is to say, to deceive her afresh, would be a still
more cowardly act. She took from among the journals that which she had
just been reading without at first quite understanding it, the one that
had been sent to her, underlined as with a venomous nail, and showing to
Vaudrey the article that spoke of Sulpicios and Basilea, she said gently
in a feeble voice, crushed by this crumbling of her hopes:

"That is known then, that affair!"

Then she sunk exhausted into the armchair in which Sulpice had been
sitting, and her breast heaved with a violent sob that tore it as if it
would rend it.

Sulpice looked at Lissac who was standing half-inclined, as in the
presence of a misfortune. He instinctively seized the minister by the
shoulder and gently forced him toward Adrienne, saying to him in a
whisper, in ill-assured tones:

"Kiss her then! One pardons when one loves!"

With a supplicating cry, Vaudrey threw himself on his knees before
Adrienne, while Lissac hastily opened the door and left, feeling indeed
that he could not say a word and that Vaudrey only could obtain
Vaudrey's pardon.

"I, in my anger," he said, "he, in his jealousy, have allowed ourselves
to get into a passion. It is stupid. One should speak lower."

He went away, much dissatisfied with himself and but little less with
Vaudrey. Again he considered this man foolish, adored as he was by such
a wife, whom he deceived. He was not sure that at the bottom of his own
heart he did not feel a sentiment of love toward Adrienne. Ah! if he had
been loved by such a creature, he would have been capable of great
things!--He would have arranged and utilized his life instead of
spoiling it. In place of vulgar love, he would have kept this unique
love intact from the altar to the tomb!

Pale and tottering, and a child once more under her sorrow, as he had
just seen her, she was so adorably lovely that he had received an
entirely new impression, one of almost jealousy against Sulpice, and
therefore, brusquely overcoming this strange, unseemly emotion, he had
himself thrust Vaudrey toward his wife and had departed hastily, as if
he felt that he mus