had carried away almost the whole of
their modest fortune. The wife had fortunately secured a post as one of
the delegates of the Poor Relief Board, an inspectorship with various
duties, such as watching over the mothers and children assisted by the
board, and reporting thereon. And she was wont to say, with a sad smile,
that this work of looking after the little ones was something of a
consolation for her, since it was now certain that she would never have
a child of her own. As for her husband, whose eyesight was failing more
and more, he had been obliged to relinquish painting altogether, and
he dragged out his days in morose desolation, his life wrecked,
annihilated.

With short steps, as if she were leading a child, Madame Angelin brought
him to an armchair near Marianne and seated him in it. He had retained
the lofty mien of a musketeer, but his features had been ravaged by
anxiety, and his hair was white, though he was only forty-four years of
age. And what memories arose at the sight of that sorrowful lady leading
that infirm, aged man, for those who had known the young couple,
all tenderness and good looks, rambling along the secluded paths of
Janville, amid the careless delights of their love.

As soon as Madame Angelin had clasped Marianne's hands with her own
trembling fingers, she also uttered in low, stammering accents, those
despairing words: "Ah! what a frightful misfortune, an only son!"

Her eyes filled with tears, and she would not sit down before going
for a moment to see the body in the adjoining room. When she came back,
sobbing in her handkerchief, she sank into an armchair between Marianne
and her husband. He remained there motionless, staring fixedly with his
dim eyes. And silence fell again throughout the lifeless house, whither
the rumble of the works, now deserted, fireless and frozen, ascended no
longer.

But Beauchene, followed by Blaise, at last made his appearance. The
heavy blow he had received seemed to have made him ten years older.
It was as if the heavens had suddenly fallen upon him. Never amid his
conquering egotism, his pride of strength and his pleasures, had he
imagined such a downfall to be possible. Never had he been willing to
admit that Maurice might be ill--such an idea was like casting a
doubt upon his own strength; he thought himself beyond the reach of
thunderbolts; misfortune would never dare to fall on him. And at the
first overwhelming moment he had found himself