fraid of being sent away.

At last, one evening in the studio, at the moment when she was leaving,
she threw herself with a distracted gesture into Claude's arms, sobbing
with suffering and passion. 'Ah! I cannot, I cannot--keep me with you;
prevent me from going back.'

He had caught hold of her, and was almost smothering her with kisses.

'You really love me, then! Oh, my darling! But I am so very poor, and
you would lose everything. Can I allow you to forego everything like
this?'

She sobbed more violently still; her halting words were choked by her
tears.

'The money, eh? which she might leave me? Do you think I calculate? I
have never thought of it, I swear it to you! Ah! let her keep everything
and let me be free! I have no ties, no relatives; can't I be allowed to
do as I like?'

Then, in a last sob of agony: 'Ah, you are right; it's wrong to desert
the poor woman. Ah! I despise myself. I wish I had the strength. But I
love you too much, I suffer too much; surely you won't let me die?'

'Oh!' he cried in a passionate transport. 'Let others die, there are but
we two on earth.'

It was all so much madness. Christine left Madame Vanzade in the most
brutal fashion. She took her trunk away the very next morning. She and
Claude had at once remembered the deserted old house at Bennecourt, the
giant rose-bushes, the immense rooms. Ah! to go away, to go away without
the loss of an hour, to live at the world's end in all the bliss of
their passion! She clapped her hands for very joy. He, still smarting
from his defeat, at the Salon, and anxious to recover from it, longed
for complete rest in the country; yonder he would find the real 'open
air,' he would work away with grass up to his neck and bring back
masterpieces. In a couple of days everything was ready, the studio
relinquished, the few household chattels conveyed to the railway
station. Besides, they met with a slice of luck, for Papa Malgras gave
some five hundred francs for a score of sketches, selected from among
the waifs and strays of the removal. Thus they would be able to live
like princes. Claude still had his income of a thousand francs a year;
Christine, too, had saved some money, besides having her outfit and
dresses. And away they went; it was perfect flight, friends avoided and
not even warned by letter, Paris despised and forsaken amid laughter
expressive of relief.

June was drawing to a close, and the rain fell in torrents during the
week