that Madame Arnoux had come to offer herself
to him, and once more he was seized with a desire to possess
her--stronger, fiercer, more desperate than he had ever experienced
before. And yet he felt, the next moment, an unaccountable repugnance to
the thought of such a thing, and, as it were, a dread of incurring the
guilt of incest. Another fear, too, had a different effect on him--lest
disgust might afterwards take possession of him. Besides, how
embarrassing it would be!--and, abandoning the idea, partly through
prudence, and partly through a resolve not to degrade his ideal, he
turned on his heel and proceeded to roll a cigarette between his
fingers.

She watched him with admiration.

"How dainty you are! There is no one like you! There is no one like
you!"

It struck eleven.

"Already!" she exclaimed; "at a quarter-past I must go."

She sat down again, but she kept looking at the clock, and he walked up
and down the room, puffing at his cigarette. Neither of them could think
of anything further to say to the other. There is a moment at the hour
of parting when the person that we love is with us no longer.

At last, when the hands of the clock got past the twenty-five minutes,
she slowly took up her bonnet, holding it by the strings.

"Good-bye, my friend--my dear friend! I shall never see you again! This
is the closing page in my life as a woman. My soul shall remain with you
even when you see me no more. May all the blessings of Heaven be yours!"

And she kissed him on the forehead, like a mother.

But she appeared to be looking for something, and then she asked him for
a pair of scissors.

She unfastened her comb, and all her white hair fell down.

With an abrupt movement of the scissors, she cut off a long lock from
the roots.

"Keep it! Good-bye!"

When she was gone, Frederick rushed to the window and threw it open.
There on the footpath he saw Madame Arnoux beckoning towards a passing
cab. She stepped into it. The vehicle disappeared.

And this was all.

CHAPTER XX.

"WAIT TILL YOU COME TO FORTY YEAR."

About the beginning of this winter, Frederick and Deslauriers were
chatting by the fireside, once more reconciled by the fatality of their
nature, which made them always reunite and be friends again.

Frederick briefly explained his quarrel with Madame Dambreuse, who had
married again, her second husband being an Englishman.

Deslauriers, without telling how he had come to marry