The one thing that Sidonie did not mention—­and it was the deepest cause of her anger against Frantz—­was that he had frightened her terribly by threatening to tell her husband her guilty secret.  From that moment she had felt decidedly ill at ease, and her life, her dear life, which she so petted and coddled, had seemed to her to be exposed to serious danger.  Yes, the thought that her husband might some day be apprized of her conduct positively terrified her.

That blessed letter put an end to all her fears.  It was impossible now for Frantz to expose her, even in the frenzy of his disappointment, knowing that she had such a weapon in her hands; and if he did speak, she would show the letter, and all his accusations would become in Risler’s eyes calumny pure and simple.  Ah, master judge, we have you now!

“I am born again—­I am born again!” she cried to Madame Dobson.  She ran out into the garden, gathered great bouquets for her salon, threw the windows wide open to the sunlight, gave orders to the cook, the coachman, the gardener.  The house must be made to look beautiful, for Georges was coming back, and for a beginning she organized a grand dinner-party for the end of the week.

The next evening Sidonie, Risler, and Madame Dobson were together in the salon.  While honest Risler turned the leaves of an old handbook of mechanics, Sidonie sang to Madame Dobson’s accompaniment.  Suddenly she stopped in the middle of her aria and burst into a peal of laughter.  The clock had just struck ten.

Risler looked up quickly.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing-an idea that came into my head,” replied Sidonie, winking of Madame Dobson and pointing at the clock.

It was the hour appointed for the meeting, and she was thinking of her lover’s torture as he waited for her to come.

Since the return of the messenger bringing from Sidonie the “yes” he had so feverishly awaited, a great calm had come over his troubled mind, like the sudden removal of a heavy burden.  No more uncertainty, no more clashing between passion and duty.

Not once did it occur to him that on the other side of the landing some one was weeping and sighing because of him.  Not once did he think of his brother’s despair, of the ghastly drama they were to leave behind them.  He saw a sweet little pale face resting beside his in the railway train, a blooming lip within reach of his lip, and two fathomless eyes looking at him by the soft light of the lamp, to the soothing accompaniment of the wheels and the steam.

Two hours before the opening of the gate for the designated train, Frantz was already at the Lyon station, that gloomy station which, in the distant quarter of Paris in which it is situated, seems like a first halting-place in the provinces.  He sat down in the darkest corner and remained there without stirring, as if dazed.

Instinctively, although the appointed hour was still distant, he looked among the people who were hurrying along, calling to one another, to see if he could not discern that graceful figure suddenly emerging from the crowd and thrusting it aside at every step with the radiance of her beauty.