. It keeps me
from thinking."

Then, after a long pause, she would continue:

"Come, my dear Risler, you must try to forget."

Risler would shake his head.

"Forget? Is that possible? There are some things beyond one's strength. A
man may forgive, but he never forgets."

The child almost always succeeded in dragging him down to the garden. He
must play ball, or in the sand, with her; but her playfellow's
awkwardness and lack of enthusiasm soon impressed the little girl. Then
she would become very sedate, contenting herself with walking gravely
between the hedges of box, with her hand in her friend's. After a moment
Risler would entirely forget that she was there; but, although he did not
realize it, the warmth of that little hand in his had a magnetic,
softening effect upon his diseased mind.

A man may forgive, but he never forgets!

Poor Claire herself knew something about it; for she had never forgotten,
notwithstanding her great courage and the conception she had formed of
her duty. To her, as to Risler; her surroundings were a constant reminder
of her sufferings. The objects amid which she lived pitilessly reopened
the wound that was ready to close. The staircase, the garden, the
courtyard, all those dumb witnesses of her husband's sin, assumed on
certain days an implacable expression. Even the careful precaution her
husband took to spare her painful reminders, the way in which he called
attention to the fact that he no longer went out in the evening, and took
pains to tell her where he had been during the day, served only to remind
her the more forcibly of his wrong-doing. Sometimes she longed to ask him
to forbear,--to say to him: "Do not protest too much." Faith was
shattered within her, and the horrible agony of the priest who doubts,
and seeks at the same time to remain faithful to his vows, betrayed
itself in her bitter smile, her cold, uncomplaining gentleness.

Georges was wofully unhappy. He loved his wife now. The nobility of her
character had conquered him. There was admiration in his love, and--why
not say it?--Claire's sorrow filled the place of the coquetry which was
contrary to her nature, the lack of which had always been a defect in her
husband's eyes. He was one of that strange type of men who love to make
conquests. Sidonie, capricious and cold as she was, responded to that
whim of his heart. After parting from her with a tender farewell, he
found her indifferent and forgetful the next d