"Ah!" she exclaimed suddenly, rising, "at last I have heard you cry!"

He lay, broken in body and spirit, incapable of thinking two thoughts in
sequence. His brain seemed to whir, undone, in his skull.

He collected himself, however, rose and went into the other room to
dress and let her do the same.

Through the drawn portiere separating the two rooms he saw a little
pinhole of light which came from the wax candle placed on the mantel
opposite the curtain. Hyacinthe, going back and forth, would momentarily
intercept this light, then it would flash out again.

"Ah," she said, "my poor darling, you have a child."

"The shot struck home," said he to himself, and aloud, "Yes, a little
girl."

"How old?"

"She will soon be six," and he described her as flaxen-haired, lively,
but in very frail health, requiring multiple precautions and constant
care.

"You must have very sad evenings," said Mme. Chantelouve, in a voice of
emotion, from behind the curtain.

"Oh yes! If I were to die tomorrow, what would become of those two
unfortunates?"

His imagination took wing. He began himself to believe the mother and
her. His voice trembled. Tears very nearly came to his eyes.

"He is unhappy, my darling is," she said, raising the curtain and
returning, clothed, into the room. "And that is why he looks so sad,
even when he smiles!"

He looked at her. Surely at that moment her affection was not feigned.
She really clung to him. Why, oh, why, had she had to have those rages
of lust? If it had not been for those they could probably have been good
comrades, sin moderately together, and love each other better than if
they wallowed in the sty of the senses. But no, such a relation was
impossible with her, he concluded, seeing those sulphurous eyes, that
ravenous, despoiling mouth.

She had sat down in front of his writing table and was playing with a
penholder. "Were you working when I came in? Where are you in your
history of Gilles de Rais?"

"I am getting along, but I am hampered. To make a good study of the
Satanism of the Middle Ages one ought to get really into the
environment, or at least fabricate a similar environment, by becoming
acquainted with the practitioners of Satanism all about us--for the
psychology is the same, though the operations differ." And looking her
straight in the eye, thinking the story of the child had softened her,
he hazarded all on a cast, "Ah! if your husband would give me the
informatio