nto such a state of terror that she kept awake all night,
and as he would not sleep for fear of talking, he felt that she exerted
every faculty to keep awake. But had he not gone too far? And by this
threat would he not drive her to some desperate act? If she should
escape, if she deserted him--what would become of him without her? Was
she not his whole life? But he reassured himself by saying that she
loved him too much ever to consent to a separation. Without doubt, she
herself would come to think as he wished her to think.

And yet when he returned home in the evening she told him that her
mother was not well, and begged him to examine her. This examination
proved that Madame Cormier was in her usual health; but she complained
that her breath failed her--during the day she had feared syncope.

"If you are willing," Phillis said, "I will sleep near mamma. I am
afraid of not hearing her at night, and she is suffering."

He began by refusing, then he consented to this arrangement; and to
thank him for it she stayed with him in his office, affectionate, full
of tenderness and caresses, until he went to his room.

He was then free to sleep or not; whether he groaned or talked she could
not hear him, since there was no communicating door between his room and
that of his mother-in-law; his voice certainly would not penetrate the
partition.

Who could have told him on the night that he decided to marry, that he
would come to such a pass--to be afraid, to hide himself from her who
brought him the calmness of sleep; and that by his fault, by a chain of
imprudences and stupidities, as if it were written that in everything
he would owe his sufferings to himself, and that if he ever succumbed to
the whirlwind that swept him along, it would be by his own deed, by his
own hand? At last he had assured the tranquillity of his nights, and as
a further precaution, although he did not fear that Phillis would enter
his room while he slept, to surprise him--she who dared not look in the
face what suspicion showed her--he locked his door. Naturally, Phillis
could not always sleep with her mother; but he would find a way to
suggest frankly their sleeping apart, and surely he could find one in
the storehouse of medicine.

These cares and similar fears were not of a nature to dispose him to
sleep, and besides for a long time he had suffered from an exasperating
nervous insomnia. As the night was warm he thought a little fresh air
would