“For in those early days, when their feelings were still undented, they had no secrets for each other.  Love had torn the mask from their faces; and each one vied with the other in letting the foulness of their past days be seen clearly.  This, no doubt, secured, first the constancy of their passion, and the continuation of their intimacy long after they had ceased loving each other.

“For now they hate each other; but they are also afraid of each other.  Ten times they have tried to break off their intimacy; and as often they have been compelled to renew it, bound as they feel they are to each other by a chain far more oppressive and solid than the one Justin Chevassat wore at the galleys.

“At first, however, they had to conceal their intimacy; for they had no money.  By joining what she had stolen from her benefactor, to what she had obtained from M. Planix, Sarah could not make up more than some forty thousand francs.  ‘That was not enough,’ she said, ’to “set up” the most modest establishment.’  As to M. de Brevan, however economical he had been, he had come to an end of the sums stolen from his employer.  For eight or ten months now, he had been reduced to all kinds of dangerous expedients in order to live.  He rode in his carriage; but he had been more than once very happy when he could extort a twenty-franc-piece from his parents.  He visited them, of course only in secret; for they had in the meantime exchanged their shop, for the modest little box assigned to the concierge of No. 23 Water Street.

“Far, therefore, from being able to be useful to Sarah, he was perfectly delighted when she brought him one fine day ten thousand francs to alleviate his distress.

“‘Ah!’ she said to him on this occasion, and often thereafter, ’why can’t we have that fool’s money?’ meaning her friend and lover, M. Planix.

“The next step was naturally an attempt at obtaining this much coveted treasure.  To begin, Sarah induced him to make a last will, in which he made her his residuary legatee.  One would be at a loss to guess how she could obtain this from a young, healthy man, full of life and happiness, if it were not that love will explain everything.  When this success had been achieved, M. de Brevan undertook to introduce in the society frequented by Sarah and M. Planix one of his friends, who was considered, and who really was, the best swordsman in Paris, a good fellow otherwise, honor itself, and rather patient in temper than given to quarrelling.

“Without compromising herself, and with that abominable skill which is peculiarly her own, Sarah, coquetted just enough with this young man, M. de Font-Avar, to tempt him to pay her some attentions.  But that very night she complained to M. Planix of his persecution, and knew so skilfully how to excite his jealousy, and to wound his vanity, that, three days later, he allowed himself to be carried away by passion, and struck M. de Font-Avar in the presence of a dozen friends.