“Yes, they came—­the notes are paid.”

“Paid?”

“Risler obtained the money.  He has been rushing about with Planus since early morning.  It seems that his wife had superb jewels.  The diamond necklace alone brought twenty thousand francs.  He has also sold their house at Asnieres with all it contained; but as time was required to record the deed, Planus and his sister advanced the money.”

She turned away from him as she spoke.  He, on his side, hung his head to avoid her glance.

“Risler is an honorable man,” she continued, “and when he learned from whom his wife received all her magnificent things—­”

“What!” exclaimed Georges in dismay.  “He knows?”

“All,” Claire replied, lowering her voice.

The wretched man turned pale, stammered feebly: 

“Why, then—­you?”

“Oh!  I knew it all before Risler.  Remember, that when I came home last night, I told you I had heard very cruel things down at Savigny, and that I would have given ten years of my life not to have taken that journey.”

“Claire!”

Moved by a mighty outburst of affection, he stepped toward his wife; but her face was so cold, so sad, so resolute, her despair was so plainly written in the stern indifference of her whole bearing, that he dared not take her in his arms as he longed to do, but simply murmured under his breath: 

“Forgive!—­forgive!”

“You must think me strangely calm,” said the brave woman; “but I shed all my tears yesterday.  You may have thought that I was weeping over our ruin; you were mistaken.  While one is young and strong as we are, such cowardly conduct is not permissible.  We are armed against want and can fight it face to face.  No, I was weeping for our departed happiness, for you, for the madness that led you to throw away your only, your true friend.”

She was lovely, lovelier than Sidonie had ever been, as she spoke thus, enveloped by a pure light which seemed to fall upon her from a great height, like the radiance of a fathomless, cloudless sky; whereas the other’s irregular features had always seemed to owe their brilliancy, their saucy, insolent charm to the false glamour of the footlights in some cheap theatre.  The touch of statuesque immobility formerly noticeable in Claire’s face was vivified by anxiety, by doubt, by all the torture of passion; and like those gold ingots which have their full value only when the Mint has placed its stamp upon them, those beautiful features stamped with the effigy of sorrow had acquired since the preceding day an ineffaceable expression which perfected their beauty.

Georges gazed at her in admiration.  She seemed to him more alive, more womanly, and worthy of adoration because of their separation and all the obstacles that he now knew to stand between them.  Remorse, despair, shame entered his heart simultaneously with this new love, and he would have fallen on his knees before her.