To explain why to a man of Minoret’s nature the sight of Ursula, who had no suspicion of the theft committed upon her, now became intolerable; why the spectacle of so much fortitude under misfortune impelled him to a desire to drive the girl out of town; and how and why it was that this desire took the form of hatred and revenge, would require a whole treatise on moral philosophy.  Perhaps he felt he was not the real possessor of thirty-six thousand francs a year so long as she to whom they really belonged lived near him.  Perhaps he fancied some mere chance might betray his theft if the person despoiled was not got rid of.  Perhaps to a nature in some sort primitive, almost uncivilized, and whose owner up to that time had never done anything illegal, the presence of Ursula awakened remorse.  Possibly this remorse goaded him the more because he had received his share of the property legitimately acquired.  In his own mind he no doubt attributed these stirrings of his conscience to the fact of Ursula’s presence, imagining that if she were removed all his uncomfortable feelings would disappear with her.  But still, after all, perhaps crime has its own doctrine of perfection.  A beginning of evil demands its end; a first stab must be followed by the blow that kills.  Perhaps robbery is doomed to lead to murder.  Minoret had committed the crime without the slightest reflection, so rapidly had the events taken place; reflection came later.  Now, if you have thoroughly possessed yourself of this man’s nature and bodily presence you will understand the mighty effect produced on him by a thought.  Remorse is more than a thought; it comes from a feeling which can no more be hidden than love; like love, it has its own tyranny.  But, just as Minoret had committed the crime against Ursula without the slightest reflection, so he now blindly longed to drive her from Nemours when he felt himself disturbed by the sight of that wronged innocence.  Being, in a sense, imbecile, he never thought of the consequences; he went from danger to danger, driven by a selfish instinct, like a wild animal which does not foresee the huntsman’s skill, and relies on its own rapidity or strength.  Before long the rich bourgeois, who still met in Dionis’s salon, noticed a great change in the manners and behavior of the man who had hitherto been so free of care.

“I don’t know what has come to Minoret, he is all no how,” said his wife, from whom he was resolved to hide his daring deed.

Everybody explained his condition as being, neither more nor less, ennui (in fact the thought now expressed on his face did resemble ennui), caused, they said, by the sudden cessation of business and the change from an active life to one of well-to-do leisure.

While Minoret was thinking only of destroying Ursula’s life in Nemours, La Bougival never let a day go by without torturing her foster child with some allusion to the fortune she ought to have had, or without comparing her miserable lot with the prospects the doctor had promised, and of which he had often spoken to her, La Bougival.