e ourselves ill;
let's go to bed.'

Her imploring voice reached him at last, and made him start with sudden
exasperation.

'Oh! go if you like! You can see very well that I want to finish
something!'

She remained there for another minute, amazed by his sudden anger, her
face expressive of deep sorrow. Then, feeling that he would rather be
without her, that the very presence of a woman doing nothing upset him,
she rose from the table and went off, leaving the door wide open. Half
an hour, three-quarters went by, nothing stirred, not a sound came from
her room; but she was not asleep, her eyes were staring into the gloom;
and at last she timidly ventured upon a final appeal, from the depths of
the dark alcove.

An oath was the only reply she received. And nothing stirred after that.
She perhaps dozed off. The cold in the studio grew keener, and the wick
of the lamp began to carbonise and burn red, while Claude, still bending
over his sketch, did not seem conscious of the passing minutes.

At two o'clock, however, he rose up, furious to find the lamp going out
for lack of oil. He only had time to take it into the other room, so
that he might not have to undress in the dark. But his displeasure
increased on seeing that Christine's eyes were wide open. He felt
inclined to complain of it. However, after some random remarks, he
suddenly exclaimed:

'The most surprising thing is that her trunk wasn't hurt!'

'What do you mean?' asked Christine, in amazement.

'Why, Mahoudeau's girl,' he answered.

At this she shook nervously, turned and buried her face in the pillow;
and he was quite surprised on hearing her burst into sobs.

'What! you are crying?' he exclaimed.

She was choking, sobbing with heart-rending violence.

'Come, what's the matter with you?--I've said nothing to you. Come,
darling, what's the matter?'

But, while he was speaking, the cause of her great grief dawned
upon him. No doubt, on a day like that, he ought to have shown more
affection; but his neglect was unintentional enough; he had not even
given the matter a thought. She surely knew him, said he; he became a
downright brute when he was at work. Then he bent over and embraced her.
But it was as if something irreparable had taken place, as if something
had for ever snapped, leaving a void between them. The formality of
marriage seemed to have killed love.

IX

AS Claude could not paint his huge picture in the small studio of
the R