ess nights, during which she thought her daughter was dead;
she heard the funeral dirges around her coffin. This strong woman wept,
not daring to show her anxiety, and trembling lest Micheline should
suspect her fears.

Serge was careless and happy, treating the apprehensions of those
surrounding him with perfect indifference. He did not think his wife was
ill--a little tired perhaps, or it might be change of climate, nothing
serious. He had quite fallen into his old ways, spending every night at
the club, and a part of the day in a little house in the Avenue Maillot,
near the Bois de Boulogne. He had found one charmingly furnished, and
there he sheltered his guilty happiness.

It was here that Jeanne came, thickly veiled, since her return from Nice.
They each had a latchkey belonging to the door opening upon the Bois. The
one who arrived first waited for the other, within the house, whose
shutters remained closed to deceive passers-by. Then the hour of
departure came; the hope of meeting again did not lessen their sadness at
parting.

Jeanne seldom went to the Rue Saint-Dominique. The welcome that Micheline
gave her was the same as usual, but Jeanne thought she discovered a
coldness which made her feel uncomfortable; and she did not care to meet
her lover's wife, so she made her visits scarce.

Cayrol came every morning to talk on business matters with Madame
Desvarennes. He had resumed the direction of his banking establishment.
The great scheme of the European Credit Company had been launched by
Herzog, and promised great results. Still Herzog caused Cayrol
considerable anxiety. Although a man of remarkable intelligence, he had a
great failing, and by trying to grasp too much often ended by
accomplishing nothing. Scarcely was one scheme launched when another idea
occurred to him, to which he sacrificed the former.

Thus, Herzog was projecting a still grander scheme to be based on the
European Credit. Cayrol, less sanguine, and more practical, was afraid of
the new scheme, and when Herzog spoke to him about it, said that things
were well enough for him as they were, and that he would not be
implicated in any fresh financial venture however promising.

Cayrol's refusal had vexed Herzog. The German knew what opinion he was
held in by the public, and that without the prestige of Cayrol's name,
and behind that, the house of Desvarennes, he would never have been able
to float the European Credit as it had been. He wa