“I am already preparing to leave,” she replied.  “My trunks are packed.”

“Will you do me the kindness of leaving here with me and of going back to Rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin with me?—­After that, you can set out at once for Grenoble.  But let us have no sign of scandal.  The world must be considered.”

She had listened to him coldly, unmoved by his trembling voice.

“That is proper,” she said ironically.  “The world must be thought of.  I will wait then before leaving.”

He was stupefied to find so much coldness and so unswerving a determination in this woman, as gentle as a child—­my wife-child, he so frequently said to her of old.  In her presence he felt ill at ease, discontented, hesitating whether he should throw himself at her feet and wring pardon from her, or fly from her and be with Marianne, perhaps forever.  But no, it was Adrienne, his poor, his dear Adrienne that he would keep and love!  Ah! if she pardoned him!  If he had dared to kneel at her feet, to plead and to weep!  But this living corpse froze him, he was afraid of her, of that gentle and devoted creature.

He went downstairs again, saying to himself that he would take a hurried dinner and then go to Rue Prony.

He was, however, obliged to occupy himself in despatching the last current business.  He must hand over his official duties to his successor.  There was a mocking expression in these words:  his successor!

“After all, he will have one also!”

He still had unexpected heartbreakings to experience.  People to whom he had promised appointments and decorations came, almost breathless, suddenly stirred by the news, to entreat him to sign the nominations and to prepare the decrees while he was still minister.  The ravens were about the corpse. Monsieur Eugene, still bowing low, although not quite so low as heretofore, endeavored to dismember Vaudrey the Minister.  He wanted a little piece, only one piece!  A sub-prefecture of the third class!

He had already been informed at the Elysee that Granet was to be his successor. Parbleu! he expected it!  But the realization of his fears annoyed him.  And who would Granet keep for his Secretary of State?  Warcolier, yes Warcolier, with the promise of giving him the first vacant portfolio.

“How correct was Ramel’s judgment?” thought Sulpice.

Vaudrey, with a sort of rage urging him, immediately set himself about a task as mournful as a funeral:  packing up.  It now seemed to him that he had just suffered a total overthrow.  Books and papers were being packed in baskets.  Before he was certain of his fall, he thought it was delightful to escape from so much daily bother, but now he felt as if he were being discrowned and ruined.  Ruin!  It truly threatened him indeed and held him by the throat.  He had realized on many pieces of property within the past year for Marianne!