The General
How is this?  What is going on here?

Gertrude (to Pauline) You must feign sickness.  Come lie down. (She makes her lie down.) I happened, my dear, to hear moans.  Our dear child was calling for help; she was almost suffocated by the flowers in her bedroom.

Pauline
Yes, papa, Marguerite had forgotten to take away the vase of flowers,
and I almost died.

Gertrude
Come, my daughter, come into the open air.

(Gertrude and Pauline go towards the door.)

The General
Stay a moment.  What have you done with the flowers.

Pauline
I do not know where Madame has put them.

Gertrude
I threw them into the garden.

(The General abruptly rushes out, after setting his candle on the card table.)

Scenethirteenth

Pauline and Gertrude; later, the General.

Gertrude
Go back to your room, lock yourself in!  I’ll take all the blame. 
(Pauline goes to her room.) I will wait for him here.

(Gertrude goes back into her room.)

The General (coming in from the garden) I can find the vase of flowers nowhere.  There is some mystery in all these things.  Gertrude?—­There is no one here!  Ah!  Madame de Grandchamp, you will have to tell me!—­It is a nice thing that I should be deceived by both wife and daughter!

Curtain to the Second Act.

ActIII

Scenefirst

(Same stage-setting.  Morning.)

Gertrude; then Champagne.

Gertrude (brings a flower vase from the garden and puts it down on the table) What trouble I had to allay his suspicions!  One or two more scenes like that and I shall lose control of him.  But I have gained a moment of liberty now—­provided Pauline does not come to trouble me!  She must be asleep—­she went to bed so late!—­would it be possible to lock her in her room? (She goes to the door of Pauline’s chamber, but cannot find the key.) I am afraid not.

Champagne (coming in)
M. Ferdinand is coming, madame.

Gertrude
Thank you, Champagne.  He went to bed very late, did he not?

Champagne
M. Ferdinand makes his rounds, as you know, every night, and he came
in at half-past one o’clock.  I sleep over him, and I heard him.

Gertrude
Does he ever go to bed later than that?

Champagne
Sometimes he does, but that is according to the time he makes his
rounds.

Gertrude Very good.  Thank you, Champagne. (Exit Champagne.) As the reward for a sacrifice which has lasted for twelve years, and whose agonies can only be understood by women,—­for what man can guess at such tortures!—­what have I asked?  Very little!  Merely to know that he is here, near to me, without any satisfaction saving, from time to time, a furtive glance at him.  I wished only to feel sure that he would wait for me.  To feel