remain?  Would he be thinner and paler?  It was her care, her anguish, to try to divine the causes of the change in him, which manifested itself as strongly in his sentiments as in his person.  Was it not truly extraordinary that he was more grave and uneasy now that his life was assured than during the hard times when he was so worried that he never knew what the morrow would bring?  He had obtained the position that his ambition coveted; he had sufficient money for his wants; he admitted that his experiments had succeeded beyond his expectations; the essays that he published on his experiments were loudly discussed, praised by some, contested by others; it seemed that he had attained his object; and he was sad, discontented, unhappy, more tormented than when he exhausted himself with efforts, without other support than his will.  At last, when frightened to see him thus, she questioned him as to how he felt, he became angry, and answered brutally—­

“Ill?  Why do you think that I am—­ill?  Am I not better able than any one to know how I am?  I am overworked, that is all; and as my life of privation does not permit me to repair my forces, I have become anaemic; it is not serious.  It is strange, truly, that you ask for explanations of what is natural.  Count the teeth of the polytechnicians and look at their hair after their examinations, and tell me what you think of them.  Why do you think anything else is the matter with me?  One cannot expend one’s self with impunity; that would be too good.  Everything must be paid for in this world.”

She was obliged to believe that he was right and understood his condition; however, she could not help worrying.  She knew nothing of medicine; she did not know the meaning of the medical terms he used, but she found that this was not sufficient to explain all—­neither his roughness of temper and excess of anger without reason, any more than his sudden tenderness, his weakness and dejection, his preoccupation and absence of mind.

She discovered the effect she produced on him, and how, merely by her presence, she cheered this gloomy fancy and raised this depression by not asking him stupid questions on certain subjects which she had not yet determined on, but which she hoped to avoid.  Also, she did not wish to leave him, and ingeniously invented excuses to go to see him twice a day; in the morning on going to her lessons, and in the afternoon or evening.

Late one evening she rang his bell with a hand made nervous with joy.

“I have come to stay till to-morrow,” she said, in triumphant tones.

She expected that he would express his joy by an embrace, but he did nothing.

“Are you going out?”

“Not at all; I am not thinking of myself, but of your mother.”

“Do you think that I would have left her alone in her weak and nervous state?  A cousin of ours arrived from the country, who will occupy my bed, and I profited by it quick enough, saying that I would remain at the school.  And here I am.”