r, her face still looked as white as that of a
corpse.

"There is some news," Vaudrey said to her abruptly. "I am no longer
minister!"

"Ah!" she said.

Not a tremor, not a word of consolation. Three days previously, she
would have leaped to his neck and said: "How happy we shall be! I have
you back; I have found you again! What joy!"

Again, she would have tried to console him had he been suffering.

Now, she remained passive, frozen, indifferent to that news.

"We shall leave the Hotel Beauvau!" said Sulpice.

"I am already preparing to leave," she replied. "My trunks are packed."

"Will you do me the kindness of leaving here with me and of going back
to Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin with me?--After that, you can set out at
once for Grenoble. But let us have no sign of scandal. The world must be
considered."

She had listened to him coldly, unmoved by his trembling voice.

"That is proper," she said ironically. "The world must be thought of. I
will wait then before leaving."

He was stupefied to find so much coldness and so unswerving a
determination in this woman, as gentle as a child--my _wife-child_, he
so frequently said to her of old. In her presence he felt ill at ease,
discontented, hesitating whether he should throw himself at her feet and
wring pardon from her, or fly from her and be with Marianne, perhaps
forever. But no, it was Adrienne, his poor, his dear Adrienne that he
would keep and love! Ah! if she pardoned him! If he had dared to kneel
at her feet, to plead and to weep! But this living corpse froze him, he
was afraid of her, of that gentle and devoted creature.

He went downstairs again, saying to himself that he would take a hurried
dinner and then go to Rue Prony.

He was, however, obliged to occupy himself in despatching the last
current business. He must hand over his official duties to his
successor. There was a mocking expression in these words: _his
successor!_

"After all, he will have one also!"

He still had unexpected heartbreakings to experience. People to whom he
had promised appointments and decorations came, almost breathless,
suddenly stirred by the news, to entreat him to sign the nominations and
to prepare the decrees while he was _still_ minister. The ravens were
about the corpse. _Monsieur Eugene_, still bowing low, although not
quite so low as heretofore, endeavored to dismember Vaudrey the
Minister. He wanted a little piece, only one piece! A sub-prefecture of
t