he had just heard, not understanding,
not wishing to understand.

Instead of returning to her mother, trembling and holding on to the wall
she entered the parlor and let herself fall into a chair, prostrated,
crushed.

"Your brother--or me?"

This was, then, the truth, the frightful truth that she had never wished
to see.

She stayed there until the noises in the street warned her that it
was getting late, and she might be surprised. Then she returned to her
mother.

"I am going out," she said; "I will return at half-past eight or nine
o'clock."

"But your husband will not see you before going to the hospital."

"You will tell him that I have gone out."

She returned at half-past nine. Madame Cormier had finished dressing.

"At last you have come," she said.

But at sight of her daughter's face she saw that something had happened.
"My God! What is the matter?" she asked, trembling.

"Something serious--very serious, but unfortunately it is irreparable.
We must leave here, never to return."

"Your husband--"

"You must never speak to me of him. This the only thing I ask of you."

"Alas! I understand. It is what I foresaw, what I said would happen. You
cannot bear the contempt that he shows us on account of your brother."

"We must hereafter be strangers to each other, and this is why we leave
this house."

"My God! At my age, to drag my bones--"

"I have engaged a lodging at the Ternes; a wagon will come to take the
furniture that belongs to us, what we brought here, only that. We will
tell the concierge that we are going to the country. As for Josephine,
you need not fear indiscreet questions, for I have given her a day off."

"But the money?"

"I have two hundred francs from the sale of my last picture; that is
enough for the present. Before they are gone I shall have painted and
sold another; do not worry, we shall have all we need."

All this was said in a hard but resolute tone.

A ring of the bell interrupted them. It was the express wagon.

"See that they do not take what does not belong to us," Phillis said.
"While they fill their wagon I will write in the parlor."

At the end of an hour the wagon was ready. Madame Cormier entered the
parlor to tell her daughter.

"I have finished," Phillis said.

Having placed her letter in an envelope, she laid it in full view on
Saniel's desk.

"Now let us go," she said.

And as her mother sighed, while walking with difficulty

"Lean on me