sitting,
busily engaged in cleaning her watch-chain by inserting a pin between
every two links with infinite care.

"Come, come, hurry. Get your things ready."

Her voice trembled, and the poor monomaniac's room seemed a horrible
place to her, all glistening as it was with the cleanliness that had
gradually become a mania. She had reached one of those fateful moments
when the loss of one illusion causes you to lose them all, enables you to
look to the very depths of human misery. The realization of her complete
isolation, between her half-mad mother, her faithless husband, her too
young child, came upon her for the first time; but it served only to
strengthen her in her resolution.

In a moment the whole household was busily engaged in making preparations
for this abrupt, unexpected departure. Claire hurried the bewildered
servants, and dressed her mother and the child, who laughed merrily amid
all the excitement. She was in haste to go before Georges' return, so
that he might find the cradle empty and the house deserted. Where should
she go? She did not know as yet. Perhaps to her aunt at Orleans, perhaps
to Savigny, no matter where. What she must do first of all was-go, fly
from that atmosphere of treachery and falsehood.

At that moment she was in her bedroom, packing a trunk, making a pile of
her effects--a heartrending occupation. Every object that she touched set
in motion whole worlds of thoughts, of memories. There is so much of
ourselves in anything that we use. At times the odor of a sachet-bag, the
pattern of a bit of lace, were enough to bring tears to her eyes.
Suddenly she heard a heavy footstep in the salon, the door of which was
partly open; then there was a slight cough, as if to let her know that
some one was there. She supposed that it was Risler: for no one else had
the right to enter her apartments so unceremoniously. The idea of having
to endure the presence of that hypocritical face, that false smile, was
so distasteful to her that she rushed to close the door.

"I am not at home to any one."

The door resisted her efforts, and Sigismond's square head appeared in
the opening.

"It is I, Madame," he said in an undertone. "I have come to get the
money."

"What money?" demanded Claire, for she no longer remembered why she had
gone to Savigny.

"Hush! The funds to meet my note to-morrow. Monsieur Georges, when he
went out, told me that you would hand it to me very soon."

"Ah! yes--true.