y laid his hand on her arm.

"I assure you that you have given me great pain."

She replied, with a sort of wail in her voice:

"But I was frightened about my child."

She told him about Eugene's illness, and all the tortures which she had
endured on that day.

"Thanks! thanks! I doubt you no longer. I love you as much as ever."

"Ah! no; it is not true!"

"Why so?"

She glanced at him coldly.

"You forget the other! the one you took with you to the races! the woman
whose portrait you have--your mistress!"

"Well, yes!" exclaimed Frederick, "I don't deny anything! I am a wretch!
Just listen to me!"

If he had done this, it was through despair, as one commits suicide.
However, he had made her very unhappy in order to avenge himself on her
with his own shame.

"What mental anguish! Do you not realise what it means?"

Madame Arnoux turned away her beautiful face while she held out her hand
to him; and they closed their eyes, absorbed in a kind of intoxication
that was like a sweet, ceaseless rocking. Then they stood face to face,
gazing at one another.

"Could you believe it possible that I no longer loved you?"

She replied in a low voice, full of caressing tenderness:

"No! in spite of everything, I felt at the bottom of my heart that it
was impossible, and that one day the obstacle between us two would
disappear!"

"So did I; and I was dying to see you again."

"I once passed close to you in the Palais-Royal!"

"Did you really?"

And he spoke to her of the happiness he experienced at coming across her
again at the Dambreuses' house.

"But how I hated you that evening as I was leaving the place!"

"Poor boy!"

"My life is so sad!"

"And mine, too! If it were only the vexations, the anxieties, the
humiliations, all that I endure as wife and as mother, seeing that one
must die, I would not complain; the frightful part of it is my solitude,
without anyone."

"But you have me here with you!"

"Oh! yes!"

A sob of deep emotion made her bosom swell. She spread out her arms, and
they strained one another, while their lips met in a long kiss.

A creaking sound on the floor not far from them reached their ears.
There was a woman standing close to them; it was Rosanette. Madame
Arnoux had recognised her. Her eyes, opened to their widest, scanned
this woman, full of astonishment and indignation. At length Rosanette
said to her:

"I have come to see Monsieur Arnoux about a matter of business."