oped to obtain.

It was only when she had succeeded that she spoke.

Every day, on leaving Madame Dammauville, she came to tell him what she
had learned, and for three successive days her story was the same:

"She was not able to leave her bed."

And each day he made the same reply:

"It is the cold weather. Surely, we shall soon have a change; this frost
and wind will not continue beyond the end of March."

He was pained at her desolation and anguish, but what could he do? It
was not his fault that this relapse occurred at a decisive moment; fate
had been against him long enough, and he was not going to counteract it
at the time when it seemed to take his side, by yielding to the desire
that Phillis dared not express, but which he divined, and by going to
see Madame Dammauville.

When she entered his office on the fourth day, he knew at once by her
manner that something favorable to Florentin had happened.

"Madame Dammauville is up," he said.

"No."

"I thought she must be, by your vivacity and lightness." "It is because
I am happy; Madame Dammauville wishes to consult you."

He took her hands roughly and shook them.

"You have done that!" he exclaimed.

She looked at him frightened.

"You! You!" he repeated with increasing fury.

"At least listen to me," she murmured. "You will see that I have not
compromised you in anything."

Compromised! It was professional dignity of which he thought, truly!

"I do not want to listen to you; I shall not go."

"Do not say that."

"It only needed that you should dispose of me in your own way."

"Victor!"

Anger carried him away.

"I belong to you, then! I am your thing! You do with me what you wish!
You decide, and I have only to obey! There is too much of this! You can
go; everything is at an end between us."

She listened, crushed; but this last word, which struck her in her
love, gave her strength. In her turn she took his hands, and although he
wished to withdraw them, she held them closely in her own.

"You may throw in my face all the angry words you please; you may
reproach me as much as you think I deserve it, and I will not complain.
Without doubt, I have done you wrong, and I feel the weight of it on
seeing how profoundly you are wounded; but to send me away, to tell me
that all is over between us, no, Victor, you will not do that. You
will not say it, for you know that never was a man loved as I love
you, adored, respected. And voluntarily,