by, and serious occurrences had compelled them to postpone the
wedding, though without undue suffering on his part. Indeed, the
certainty that she was waiting for him had sufficed him, for his life of
hard work had rendered him patient. Now, however, all at once, at the
threat of losing her, his hitherto tranquil heart ached and bled. He
would never have thought the tie so close a one. But he was now almost
fifty, and it was as if love and woman were being wrenched away from him,
the last woman that he could love and desire, one too who was the more
desirable, as she was the incarnation of youth from which he must ever be
severed, should he indeed lose her. Passionate desire, mingled with rage,
flared up within him at the thought that someone should have come to take
her from him.

One night, alone in his room, he suffered perfect martyrdom. In order
that he might not rouse the house he buried his face in his pillow so as
to stifle his sobs. After all, it was a simple matter; Marie had given
him her promise, and he would compel her to keep it. She would be his,
and his alone, and none would be able to steal her from him. Then,
however, there rose before him a vision of his brother, the
long-forgotten one, whom, from feelings of affection, he had compelled to
join his family. But his sufferings were now so acute that he would have
driven that brother away had he been before him. He was enraged,
maddened, by the thought of him. His brother--his little brother! So all
their love was over; hatred and violence were about to poison their
lives. For hours Guillaume continued complaining deliriously, and seeking
how he might so rid himself of Pierre that what had happened should be
blotted out. Now and again, when he recovered self-control, he marvelled
at the tempest within him; for was he not a _savant_ guided by lofty
reason, a toiler to whom long experience had brought serenity? But the
truth was that this tempest had not sprung up in his mind, it was raging
in the child-like soul that he had retained, the nook of affection and
dreaminess which remained within him side by side with his principles of
pitiless logic and his belief in proven phenomena only. His very genius
came from the duality of his nature: behind the chemist was a social
dreamer, hungering for justice and capable of the greatest love. And now
passion was transporting him, and he was weeping for the loss of Marie as
he would have wept over the downfall of th