e stopped."

All the greater reason to try and do something; it was impossible that
they could not find three thousand francs. Besides, Leon, could be
security instead of her.

"Go, try, try! I will love you so!"

He went out, and came back at the end of an hour, saying, with solemn
face--

"I have been to three people with no success."

Then they remained sitting face to face at the two chimney corners,
motionless, in silence. Emma shrugged her shoulders as she stamped her
feet. He heard her murmuring--

"If I were in your place _I_ should soon get some."

"But where?"

"At your office." And she looked at him.

An infernal boldness looked out from her burning eyes, and their lids
drew close together with a lascivious and encouraging look, so that the
young man felt himself growing weak beneath the mute will of this woman
who was urging him to a crime. Then he was afraid, and to avoid any
explanation he smote his forehead, crying--

"Morel is to come back to-night; he will not refuse me, I hope" (this
was one of his friends, the son of a very rich merchant); "and I will
bring it you to-morrow," he added.

Emma did not seem to welcome this hope with all the joy he had expected.
Did she suspect the lie? He went on, blushing--

"However, if you don't see me by three o'clock do not wait for me, my
darling. I must be off now; forgive me! Goodbye!"

He pressed her hand, but it felt quite lifeless. Emma had no strength
left for any sentiment.

Four o'clock struck, and she rose to return to Yonville, mechanically
obeying the force of old habits.

The weather was fine. It was one of those March days, clear and sharp,
when the sun shines in a perfectly white sky. The Rouen folk, in
Sunday-clothes, were walking about with happy looks. She reached the
Place du Parvis. People were coming out after vespers; the crowd flowed
out through the three doors like a stream through the three arches of
a bridge, and in the middle one, more motionless than a rock, stood the
beadle.

Then she remembered the day when, all anxious and full of hope, she had
entered beneath this large nave, that had opened out before her, less
profound than her love; and she walked on weeping beneath her veil,
giddy, staggering, almost fainting.

"Take care!" cried a voice issuing from the gate of a courtyard that was
thrown open.

She stopped to let pass a black horse, pawing the ground between the
shafts of a tilbury, driven by a gentleman