he had exhausted all that man can suffer; and there was nothing
left for her to fear.

A last misfortune which now befell her did not elicit even a sigh from
her. One afternoon, while she had been down stairs, she had left the
window open. The wind had suddenly sprung up, slammed the blinds, and
thus upset a chair. On this chair hung her cashmere; it fell into the
fireplace, in which a little fire was still burning; and when she came
back she found the shawl half-burnt to ashes. It was the only article of
value which she still possessed; and she might at any time have procured
several hundred francs for it.

"Well," she said, "what does it matter? It means three months taken from
my life; that is all."

And she did not think of it any more; she did not even trouble herself
about the rent, which became due in October.

"I shall not be able to pay it," she said to herself. "Mrs. Chevassat
will give me notice, and then the hour will have come."

Still, to her great surprise, the worthy woman from below did not scold
her for not having the money ready, and even promised she would make
the owner of the house give her time. This inexplicable forbearance
gave Henrietta a week's respite. But at last, one morning, she woke up,
having not a cent left, having nothing even, she thought, that she could
get money for, and being very hungry.

"Well," she thought, as if announcing to her own soul that the
catastrophe had at last come, "all I need now is a few minutes'
courage."

She said so in her mind; but in reality she was chilled to the heart by
the fearful certainty that the crisis had really come: she felt as if
the executioner were at the door of the room, ready to announce her
sentence of death. And yet, for a month now, she had thought of suicide
only; and the evening before she had thought it over with a kind of
delight.

"I am surely not such a coward?" she said to herself in a fit of rage.

Yes, she was afraid. Yes, she told herself in vain that there was no
other choice left to her but that between death and Sir Thorn, or M. de
Brevan. She was terrified.

Alas! she was only twenty years old; she had never felt such exuberance
of life within her; she wanted to live,--to live a month more, a week, a
day!

If only her shawl had not been burnt! Then, examining with haggard eyes
her chamber, she saw that exquisite piece of embroidery which she had
undertaken. It was a dress, covered _all_ over with work of marvell