She could not betray Juliette after having saved her.  An abyss lay before her into which she herself was slipping.  Henri was now glancing round the two rooms in wonderment at finding them illumined and furnished in such gaudy style.  He ventured to question her.

“Are these rooms yours?” he asked.

But she remained silent.

“Your letter upset me so,” he continued.  “Helene, you are hiding something from me.  For mercy’s sake, relieve my anxiety!”

She was not listening to him; she was reflecting that he was indeed right in considering this to be an assignation.  Otherwise, what could she have been doing there?  Why should she have waited for him?  She could devise no plausible explanation.  She was no longer certain whether she had not given him this rendezvous.  A network of chance and circumstance was enveloping her yet more tightly; there was no escape from it.  Each second found her less able to resist.

“You were waiting for me, you were waiting for me!” he repeated passionately, as he bent his head to kiss her.  And then as his lips met hers she felt it beyond her power to struggle further; but, as though in mute acquiescence, fell, half swooning and oblivious of the world, upon his neck.

[Illustration:  The meeting of Helene and Henri]

CHAPTER XX.

Jeanne, with her eyes fixed on the door, remained plunged in grief over her mother’s sudden departure.  She gazed around her; the room was empty and silent; but she could still hear the waning sounds of hurrying footsteps and rustling skirts, and last the slamming of the outer door.  Then nothing stirred, and she was alone.

All alone, all alone.  Over the bed hung her mother’s dressing-gown, flung there at random, the skirt bulging out and a sleeve lying across the bolster, so that the garment looked like some person who had fallen down overwhelmed with grief, and sobbing in misery.  There was some linen scattered about, and a black neckerchief lay on the floor like a blot of mourning.  The chairs were in disorder, the table had been pushed in front of the wardrobe, and amidst it all she was quite alone.  She felt her tears choking her as she looked at the dressing-gown which no longer garmented her mother, but was stretched there with the ghastly semblance of death.  She clasped her hands, and for the last time wailed, “Mamma! mamma!” The blue velvet hangings, however, deadened the sound.  It was all over, and she was alone.

Then the time slipped away.  The clock struck three.  A dismal, dingy light came in through the windows.  Dark clouds were sailing over the sky, which made it still gloomier.  Through the panes of glass, which were covered with moisture, Paris could only be dimly seen; the watery vapor blurred it; its far-away outskirts seemed hidden by thick smoke.  Thus the city even was no longer there to keep the child company, as on bright afternoons, when, on leaning out a little, it seemed to her as though she could touch each district with her hand.