“But one of them gives you greater joys,” he said, more quickly still.

“I never counted them,” she said.

“How false you women are!” cried Diard.  “Will you dare to say that Juan is not the child of your heart?”

“If that were so,” she said, with dignity, “do you think it a misfortune?”

“You have never loved me.  If you had chosen, I would have conquered worlds for your sake.  You know all that I have struggled to do in life, supported by the hope of pleasing you.  Ah! if you had only loved me!”

“A woman who loves,” said Juana, “likes to live in solitude, far from the world, and that is what we are doing.”

“I know, Juana, that you are never in the wrong.”

The words were said bitterly, and cast, for the rest of their lives together, a coldness between them.

On the morrow of that fatal day Diard went back to his old companions and found distractions for his mind in play.  Unfortunately, he won much money, and continued playing.  Little by little, he returned to the dissipated life he had formerly lived.  Soon he ceased even to dine in his own home.

Some months went by in the enjoyment of this new independence; he was determined to preserve it, and in order to do so he separated himself from his wife, giving her the large apartments and lodging himself in the entresol.  By the end of the year Diard and Juana only saw each other in the morning at breakfast.

Like all gamblers, he had his alternations of loss and gain.  Not wishing to cut into the capital of his fortune, he felt the necessity of withdrawing from his wife the management of their income; and the day came when he took from her all she had hitherto freely disposed of for the household benefit, giving her instead a monthly stipend.  The conversation they had on this subject was the last of their married intercourse.  The silence that fell between them was a true divorce; Juana comprehended that from henceforth she was only a mother, and she was glad, not seeking for the causes of this evil.  For such an event is a great evil.  Children are conjointly one with husband and wife in the home, and the life of her husband could not be a source of grief and injury to Juana only.

As for Diard, now emancipated, he speedily grew accustomed to win and lose enormous sums.  A fine player and a heavy player, he soon became celebrated for his style of playing.  The social consideration he had been unable to win under the Empire, he acquired under the Restoration by the rolling of his gold on the green cloth and by his talent for all games that were in vogue.  Ambassadors, bankers, persons with newly-acquired large fortunes, and all those men who, having sucked life to the dregs, turn to gambling for its feverish joys, admired Diard at their clubs,—­seldom in their own houses,—­and they all gambled with him.  He became the fashion.  Two or three times during the winter he gave a fete as a matter