Surprised at first, Claire turned livid.

“Leave me!” she cried in an angry voice.

Philippe drew back.  “What!” he said, in a troubled voice.  “You repel me with horror!  Do you hate me, then?  And why?  Ah, that man who forsook you so cowardly—­that man, do you still happen to love him?”

“Ah, have you not perceived that I have been mad?” cried Claire, ceasing to restrain herself.  “I have deserved your anger and contempt, no doubt.  Come, take everything belonging to me except myself!  My fortune is yours.  I give it you.  Let it be the ransom of my liberty.”

Philippe was on the point of revealing the truth, which he had hitherto hidden with such delicacy and care, but he cast the idea aside.  “Do you really take me for a man who sells himself?” he asked coldly.  “I, who came here but a little while ago, palpitating and trembling to tell my love!  Wasn’t I more than mad, more than grotesque?  For, after all, I have your fortune.  I’m paid.  I have no right to complain.”

Philippe burst into a bitter laugh, and falling on the sofa, hid his face in his hands.

“Monsieur,” said Claire haughtily, “let us finish this.  Spare me useless raillery——­”

Philippe showed his face, down which tears were streaming.  “I am not railing, madame; I am weeping—­mourning my happiness, for ever lost.  But this is enough weakness.  You wished to purchase your liberty.  I give it you for nothing.  You will realise one day that you have been even more unjust than cruel, and you may then think of trying to undo what you have done.  But it will be useless.  If I saw you on your knees begging my forgiveness, I should not have a word of pity for you.  Adieu, madame.  We shall live as you have willed it.”

Claire simply bent her head in assent.  Philippe gave her a last glance, hoping for some softening; but she remained inert and frigid.  He slowly opened the door, and closed it, pausing again to listen if a cry or a sigh would give him—­wounded as he was—­a pretext for returning and offering to forgive.  But all was silent.

“Proud creature,” said he.  “You refuse to bend, but I will break you.”

The next morning Claire was found insensible, and for months she lay ill, nursed by Philippe with silent devotion.  From that time forth his manner did not change.  Gentle and most attentive to Claire in the presence of strangers, he was cold, grave, and strictly polite when they were alone.

IV.—­The Lover’s Reward

In the first expansion of her return to life she had decided she would be amiable, and frankly grant her friendship to Philippe, but saw, to her mortification, she was disposed to grant more than was asked of her.  When he handed her “the income of her fortune, for six months,” she became in a moment the proud Claire of other times, and refused to take it.  Their eyes met; she relapsed, conquered.  He it was she loved now.  She constantly looked at him, and did whatever she thought would please him.  She learnt with surprise that her husband was on the high road to becoming one of the princes of industry—­that great power of the century.  And when she learnt, accidentally from her brother, that she herself had had no dowry, she said, “I must win him back, or I shall die!”