The truth dimly seen is like the veiled sun, which tires the eyes far more than its most brilliant rays.  In the semi-obscurity which still enveloped her misfortune, the poor woman’s sight was keener than she could have wished.  Now she understood and accounted for certain peculiar circumstances in her husband’s life, his frequent absences, his restlessness, his embarrassed behavior on certain days, and the abundant details which he sometimes volunteered, upon returning home, concerning his movements, mentioning names as proofs which she did not ask.  From all these conjectures the evidence of his sin was made up.  And still she refused to believe it, and looked forward to her arrival in Paris to set her doubts at rest.

No one was at the station, a lonely, cheerless little place, where no traveller ever showed his face in winter.  As Claire sat there awaiting the train, gazing vaguely at the station-master’s melancholy little garden, and the debris of climbing plants running along the fences by the track, she felt a moist, warm breath on her glove.  It was her friend Kiss, who had followed her and was reminding her of their happy romps together in the old days, with little shakes of the head, short leaps, capers of joy tempered by humility, concluding by stretching his beautiful white coat at full length at his mistress’s feet, on the cold floor of the waiting-room.  Those humble caresses which sought her out, like a hesitating offer of devotion and sympathy, caused the sobs she had so long restrained to break forth as last.  But suddenly she felt ashamed of her weakness.  She rose and sent the dog away, sent him away pitilessly with voice and gesture, pointing to the house in the distance, with a stern face which poor Kiss had never seen.  Then she hastily wiped her eyes and her moist hands; for the train for Paris was approaching and she knew that in a moment she should need all her courage.

Claire’s first thought on leaving the train was to take a cab and drive to the jeweller in the Rue de la Paix, who had, as her grandfather alleged, supplied Georges with a diamond necklace.  If that should prove to be true, then all the rest was true.  Her dread of learning the truth was so great that, when she reached her destination and alighted in front of that magnificent establishment, she stopped, afraid to enter.  To give herself countenance, she pretended to be deeply interested in the jewels displayed in velvet cases; and one who had seen her, quietly but fashionably dressed, leaning forward to look at that gleaming and attractive display, would have taken her for a happy wife engaged in selecting a bracelet, rather than an anxious, sorrow-stricken soul who had come thither to discover the secret of her life.