“Something stronger than herself forced her to him; so much so, that one day, seeing her come unexpectedly he frowned as one put out.

“‘What is the matter with you?’ she said, ‘Are you ill?  Tell me!’

“At last he declared with a serious air that her visits were becoming imprudent—­that she was compromising herself.

“Gradually Rodolphe’s fears took possession of her.  At first, love had intoxicated her, and she had thought of nothing beyond.  But now that he was indispensable to her life, she feared to lose anything of this, or even that it should be disturbed.  When she came back from his house, she looked all about her, anxiously watching every form that passed in the horizon, and every village window from which she could be seen.  She listened for steps, cries, the noise of the ploughs, and she stopped short, white, and trembling more than the aspen leaves swaying overhead.”

You see unmistakably that she was not deceived; she felt clearly that there was something about it of which she had not dreamed.  Let us take pages 433 and 434 and you will be still further convinced: 

“When the night was rainy, they took refuge in the consulting-room, between the cart-shed and the stable.  She lighted one of the kitchen candles that she had hidden behind the books.  Rodolphe settled down there as if at home.  The sight of the library, of the bureau, of the whole apartment, in fine, excited his merriment, and he could not refrain from making jokes about Charles which rather embarrassed Emma.  She would have liked to see him more serious and even on occasions more dramatic; as, for example, when she thought she heard a noise of approaching steps in the alley.

“‘Some one is coming!’ she said

“He blew out the light.

“‘Have you your pistols?’

“‘Why?’

“‘Why, to defend yourself,’ replied Emma.

“‘From your husband?  Oh, poor devil!’”

And Rodolphe finished his phrase with a gesture which signified:  I could crush him with a fillip.

She was amazed at his bravery, although she felt that there was a sort of indelicacy and naive grossness about it that was scandalizing.

“Rodolphe reflected a good deal on the affair of the pistols.  If she had spoken seriously, it was very ridiculous, he thought, even odious; for he had no reason to hate the good Charles, not being what is called devoured by jealousy; and on this subject Emma had treated him to a lecture, which he did not think in the best taste.

“Besides, she was growing very sentimental.  She had insisted on exchanging miniatures; they had cut handfuls of hair, and now she was asking for a ring—­a real wedding-ring, in sign of an eternal union.  She often spoke to him of the evening chimes, of the voices of nature.  Then she talked to him of her mother—­hers! and of his mother—­his!

“Finally she wearied him.”

Then, on page 453: