completed her ninth year, and each time that Morange met her he was thrown into a state of emotion and adoration, the more touching since it was all a divine illusion on his part, for the two girls in no wise resembled each other, the one having been extremely dark, and the other being nearly fair.  In spite of his terrible avarice, the accountant loaded Hortense with dolls and sweetmeats on every possible occasion; and at last his affection for the child absorbed him to such a degree that Constance felt offended by it.  She thereupon gave him to understand that whosoever was not entirely on her side was, in reality, against her.

To all appearance, he made his submission; in reality, he only loved the child the more for the thwarting of his passion, and he watched for her in order to kiss her in secret.  In his daily intercourse with Constance, in showing apparent fidelity to the former mistress of the works, he now simply yielded to fear, like the poor weak being he was, one whom Constance had ever bent beneath her stern hand.  The pact between them was an old one, it dated from that monstrous thing which they alone knew, that complicity of which they never spoke, but which bound them so closely together.

He, with his weak, good nature, seemed from that day to have remained annihilated, tamed, cowed like a frightened animal.  Since that day, too, he had learnt many other things, and now no secret of the house remained unknown to him.  This was not surprising.  He had been living there so many years.  He had so often walked to and fro with his short, discreet, maniacal step, hearing, seeing, and surprising everything!  However, this madman, who knew the truth and who remained silent—­this madman, left free amid the mysterious drama enacted in the Beauchenes’ home, was gradually coming to a rebellious mood, particularly since he was compelled to hide himself to kiss his little friend Hortense.  His heart growled at the thought of it, and he felt ready to explode should his passion be interfered with.

All at once, one evening, Constance kept him to dinner.  And he suspected that the hour of her revelations had come, on seeing how she quivered and how erectly she carried her little figure, like a fighter henceforth certain of victory.  Nevertheless, although the servant left them alone after bringing in at one journey the whole of the frugal repast, she did not broach the great affair at table.  She spoke of the factory and then of Denis and his wife Marthe, whom she criticised, and she was even so foolish as to declare that Hortense was badly behaved, ugly, and destitute of grace.  The accountant, like the coward he was, listened to her, never daring to protest in spite of the irritation and rebellion of his whole being.

“Well, we shall see,” she said at last, “when one and all are put back into their proper places.”

Then she waited until they returned to the little drawing-room, and the doors were shut behind them; and it was only then, near the fire, amid the deep silence of the winter evening, that she spoke out on the subject which she had at heart: