On the following Saturday, when Louise, who had come on a two months'

visit to the Chanteaus, stepped on to the terrace, she found the family

there. The hot August day was drawing to a close, and a cool breeze

rose up from the sea. Abbé Horteur had already made his appearance,

and was playing draughts with Chanteau. Madame Chanteau sat near them,

embroidering a handkerchief; and, a few yards further away, Pauline

stood in front of a stone seat on which she had placed four children

from the village, two little lads and two little girls.

'What! you have got here already!' cried Madame Chanteau. 'I was just

folding up my work to go and meet you at the cross-roads.'

Louise gaily explained that old Malivoire had flown along like the

wind. She was all right, she said, and did not even want to change her

dress; and, while her godmother went off to see about her room, she

hung her hat on the hasp of a shutter. She kissed them all round, and

then, all smiling and caressing, threw her arms round Pauline's waist.

'Now, look at me,' she said. 'Good gracious! how we have grown! I'm

turned nineteen now, you know, and am getting quite an old maid.'

And after a moment's silence she added rapidly:

'By the way, I must congratulate you. Oh! don't look so shy! I hear it

is settled for next month.'

Pauline had returned her caresses with the grave affection of an elder

sister, although in reality she was the younger by some eighteen

months. A slight blush rose to her cheeks at the reference to her

marriage with Lazare.

'Oh, no! you have been misinformed, really,' she replied. 'Nothing is

definitely fixed, but it will perhaps be some time in the autumn.'

Madame Chanteau, when pressed on the subject, had indeed spoken of

the autumn, in spite of her unwillingness to commit herself to the

match, an unwillingness which the two young people were beginning to

notice. She was again beginning to harp upon her old excuse for delay,

saying that she should much prefer them waiting till Lazare should have

acquired some definite position.

'Ah! I see,' said Louise, 'you want to make a secret of it. Well, never

mind; but you'll ask me to come, won't you? Where's Lazare? Isn't he

here?'

Chanteau, who had just suffered a defeat at the hands of the priest,

here joined in the conversation, saying:

'Haven't you seen anything of him, Louise? We were expecting you to

get here together. He has gone to Bayeux to make an application to the

Sub-Prefect, but he will be back again this evening--almost directly, I

should think.'

Then he turned to the draught-board to commence a fresh game.

'I move first this time, Abbé. We shall manage to get those famous

dykes made, I fancy; for the department surely can't refuse to make us

a grant to help on the undertaking.'

He was referring to a new scheme which Lazare had taken up with his

usual enthusiasm. During the spring-tides of the previous March the sea

had again carried away a couple of houses at Bonneville. Devoured bit

by bit on its narrow bed of shingle, the village, it was clear, would

be driven to the very cliff unless some substantial protecting works

were quickly built. But the little place, with its thirty cottages, was

of such slight importance in the world that Chanteau, as Mayor, had for

the last ten years been vainly calling the Sub-Prefect's attention to

the perilous position of the villagers. At last Lazare, spurred on by

Pauline, whose great wish was to see her cousin actively employed, had

conceived a grand idea of a system of piles and breakwaters which would

keep back the ravages of the sea. However, money was wanted, and at

least twelve thousand francs would be necessary.

'Ah! I must huff you, my friend,' said the priest, taking one of

Chanteau's pieces.

Then he launched out into details of old Bonneville.

'The old folks say that there was once a farm below the church, quite

half a mile and more from the present shore. For five hundred years the

sea has been gradually eating away the land. It is surely a punishment

for the sins of their ancestors.'

Pauline, however, had now returned to the stone seat, where the four

young ones were waiting, dirty, ragged, and open-mouthed.

'Who is it you've got there?' Louise asked her, not daring to venture

too near them.

'Oh! they are some little friends of mine,' Pauline replied.

The girl's active charity now spread all over the neighbourhood. She

had an instinctive affection for the wretched, and she was never

repelled by their forlorn condition. She even carried this feeling so

far as to patch up the broken legs of fowls with splinters of wood,

and to set bowls of pap outside at night for homeless cats. Distress

of every kind was a source of continual occupation to her, and to

alleviate it was her great pleasure. So the poor flocked round her with

outstretched hands, just as pilfering sparrows swarm round the open

windows of a corn-loft. All Bonneville, with its handful of fishermen

thrown into distress by the sweeping spring-tides, came up to see the

'young lady,' as they called her. But it was the children who were her

especial favourites, the little things with ragged clothes, through

which their pink flesh peeped, poor, frail-looking, half-fed creatures,

whose eyes glistened wolfishly at the slices of bread and butter

that she brought out for them. The cunning parents took advantage of

Pauline's love for the children, making it a custom to send her the

most sickly and ragged that they had, in order that they might increase

her commiseration.

'You see,' she said, with a smile, 'I have my day at home, Saturday,

just like a fashionable lady, and my friends come to see me. Now, now!

little Gonin, just give over pinching that silly Houtelard. I shall be

cross with you if you don't behave better. Now, we will begin in order.'

Then the distribution commenced. She lectured them, and hustled them

about in quite a maternal manner. The first she called up to her was

young Houtelard, a lad of some ten years, with a sallow complexion and

a gloomy timid expression. He began to show her his leg. A big strip of

skin had been torn from the knee, and his father had sent him to let

the young lady see it, so that she might give him something for it.

It was Pauline who supplied arnica and liniments to all the country

round. The pleasure she took in healing had resulted in the gradual

acquisition of a complete collection of drugs, of which she was very

proud. When she had attended to the lad's knee, she lowered her voice

and proceeded to give Louise some particulars about his relations.

'They are quite well-to-do people, those Houtelards, you know; the

only well-to-do fisher-folks in Bonneville. That big smack, you know,

belongs to them. But they are frightfully avaricious, and live real

dogs' lives in the midst of the most horrible filth. The worst of it

all is that the father, after beating his wife to death, has married

his servant, a dreadful woman, who is even harsher than himself, and

between them they are gradually murdering the poor child.'

Then, without taking notice of her friend's repugnance, she raised her

voice again, and called another of the children.

'Now, little one, you come here; have you drunk your bottle of

quinine-wine?'

This child was the little daughter of Prouane, the verger. She looked

like an infant Saint Theresa, marked all over with scrofula, flushed

and frightfully thin, with big eyes, in which hysteria was already

gleaming. She was eleven years old, but seemed to be scarcely seven.

'Yes, Mademoiselle,' she stammered; 'I have drunk it all.'

'You little story-teller!' cried the priest, without taking his eyes

from the draught-board. 'Your father smelt strongly of wine last night.'

Pauline looked extremely annoyed. The Prouanes had no boat, but made

their living by catching crabs and shrimps and gathering mussels. With

the additional profits of the vergership they might have lived in

decent comfort if it had not been for their drinking habits. The father

and mother were often to be seen lying in their doorway stupefied by

'calvados,' the strong, raw, cyder-brandy of Normandy, while the little

girl stepped over their legs to drain their glasses. When no 'calvados'

was to be had, Prouane drank his daughter's quinine-wine.

'And to think I took so much trouble to make it for you!' said Pauline.

'Well, for the future, I shall keep the bottle here, and you will have

to come up every afternoon at five o'clock. And I will give you a

little minced raw meat. The doctor has ordered it for you.'

It was next the turn of a big twelve-year-old boy, Cuche's son, a lean

and scraggy stripling. Pauline gave him a loaf, some stewed meat, and

also a five-franc piece. His was another wretched story. After the

destruction of their house Cuche had deserted his wife, and gone to

live with a female cousin, and the wife was now taking refuge in an

old dilapidated Coastguard watch-house, where she led an immoral life.

The lad, who kept with her and shared the little she had, was almost

starving, but whenever any suggestion was made of rescuing him from

that wretched den he bolted off like a wild goat. Louise turned her

head away with an air of disgust when Pauline, without the slightest

embarrassment, told her the boy's story. She, Pauline, had grown up

in a free unrestrained way, and looked with charity's unflinching eye

upon the vices of humanity. Louise, on the other hand, initiated into

knowledge of life by ten years spent at boarding-schools, blushed at

the ideas which Pauline's words suggested. In her estimation these were

matters which people thought of, but should not mention.

'The other little girl there,' Pauline went on, 'that fair-haired

little child, who is so rosy and bonny, is the daughter of the Gonins,

with whom that rascal Cuche has taken up his quarters. She is nine

years old. The Gonins were once very comfortably off, and had a smack

of their own, but the father was attacked with paralysis in the legs,

a very common complaint in our villages about here, and Cuche, who

was only a common seaman to begin with, soon made himself the master.

Now the whole house belongs to him, and he bullies the poor old man,

who passes his days and nights inside an old coal-chest, while Cuche

and the wife lord it over him. I look after the child myself, but I

am sorry to say she comes in for a good many cuffings at home, and is

unfortunately much too shrewd and noticing.'

Here Pauline stopped and turned to the child to question her.

'How are they all getting on at home?' she asked.

The child had watched Pauline while the latter was explaining matters

in an undertone. Her pretty but vicious face smiled slyly at what she

guessed was being said.

'Oh, they've beaten him again,' she said, still continuing to smile.

'Last night mother got up and caught hold of a log of wood. Ah!

Mademoiselle, it would be very good of you to give father a little

wine, for they have put an empty jug by the chest, telling him that he

may drink till he bursts.'

Louise made a gesture of disgust. What horrible people! How could

Pauline take any interest in such dreadful things? Was it really

possible that near a big town like Caen there existed such hideous

places, where people lived in that utterly barbarous fashion?[4] For,

surely, they could be nothing less than savages, to thus trample under

foot all law, both divine and human.

'There! there! I have had quite enough of your young friends,' she

said, in a low tone, as she went to sit down near Chanteau. 'I should

not mourn for them very much if the sea were to sweep them all away.'

The Abbé had just crowned a king.

'Sodom and Gomorrah!' he cried. 'I have been warning them for the last

twenty years. Well, it will be so much the worse for them.'

'I have asked to have a school built here,' said Chanteau, feeling a

little distressed, as he saw the game going against him; 'but there

aren't people enough. The children ought to go to Verchemont, but they

don't like school, and only play about on the roads when they are sent

there.'

Pauline looked up in surprise. If the poor things were clean, she was

thinking, there would be no necessity to attempt to make them so.

Wickedness and wretchedness went together, and she felt in no way

repelled by suffering, even when it seemed to be the consequence of

vice. But she confined herself to asserting her charitable tolerance

with a gesture of protest. Then she went on to promise little Gonin

that she would go to see her father; and while she was doing so

Véronique appeared upon the scene, pushing another little girl in front

of her.

'Here's another, Mademoiselle.'

The new-comer, who was very young, certainly not more than five years

old, was completely in rags, with black face and matted hair. With all

the readiness of one already accustomed to begging on the high-roads

she at once began to whine and groan:

'Please take pity upon me. My poor father has broken his leg----'

'It's Tourmal's girl, isn't it?' asked Pauline of Véronique.

But before the servant could reply the priest broke out angrily:

'The little hussy! Don't take any notice of her. Her father has been

pretending to break his leg for the last five-and-twenty years. They

are a family of swindlers, who only live by thieving. The father helps

the smugglers. The mother pilfers in all the fields about Verchemont,

and the grandfather prowls about at night, stealing oysters from the

Government beds at Roqueboise. You can see for yourselves what they are

making of their daughter--a little thief and a beggar, whom they send

to people's houses to lay her hands upon anything that may happen to be

lying about. Just look how she is glancing at my snuff-box!'

The child's eyes, indeed, after inquisitively examining every corner of

the terrace, had flashed brightly on catching sight of the priest's old

snuff-box. She was not in the slightest degree abashed by the Abbé's

account of her family history, but repeated her petition as calmly as

though he had not spoken a word.

'He has broken his leg. Please, kind young lady, help us with a

trifle.'

This time Louise broke out into a laugh. That little five-year-old

impostor, who was already as scampish as her parents, quite amused her.

Pauline, however, remained perfectly grave and serious, and took a new

five-franc piece from her purse.

'Now, listen to me,' she said; 'I will give you as much every Saturday

if I hear a good account of you during the week.'

'Look after the spoons, then,' Abbé Horteur cried, 'or she will walk

off with some of them.'

Pauline made no reply to this remark, but dismissed the children, who

slouched off with exclamations of 'Thank you kindly' and 'May God

reward you!'

While this scene had been taking place Madame Chanteau, who had just

come back from the house, whither she had gone to give a glance at

Louise's room, was muttering with vexation at Véronique. It was quite

intolerable that the servant should take upon herself to introduce

those wretched beggars. Mademoiselle herself brought quite sufficient

of them to the house. A lot of scum, who robbed her of her money and

then laughed at her! Of course the money was her own, and she could

play ducks and drakes with it if she were so disposed, but it was

really becoming quite immoral to encourage vice in this way. She had

heard Pauline promise a hundred sous a week to the little Tourmal girl.

Another twenty francs a month! The fortune of an emperor would not

suffice for such perpetual extravagance!

'You know very well,' she said to Pauline, 'that I hate to see that

little thief here. Though you are now the mistress of your fortune,

I cannot allow you to ruin yourself so foolishly. I am morally

responsible. Yes, my dear, I repeat that you are ruining yourself, and

more quickly than you have any notion of.'

Véronique, who had gone back to her kitchen, fuming with anger at

Madame Chanteau's reprimand, now reappeared.

'The butcher's here!' she cried roughly. 'He wants his bill settled;

forty-six francs ten centimes.'

A pang of vexation curtailed Madame Chanteau's remarks. She fumbled in

her pocket, and then, assuming an expression of surprise, she whispered

to Pauline:

'Have you got as much about you, my dear? I have no change here, and I

shall have to go upstairs. I will give it you back very shortly.'

Pauline went off with the servant to pay the butcher. Since she had

begun to keep her money in her chest of drawers the same old comedy

had been enacted each time a bill was presented for payment. It was a

systematic levy of small amounts which had grown to be quite a matter

of course. Her aunt no longer troubled to go and withdraw the money

herself, but asked Pauline for it, and thus made the girl rob herself

with her own hands. At first there had been a pretence of settling

accounts, and sums of ten and fifteen francs had been repaid to her,

but afterwards matters got so complicated that a settlement was

deferred till later on, when the marriage should take place. Yet, in

spite of all this, they took care that she should pay for her board

with the greatest punctuality on the first day of every month, the sum

due in this respect being now raised to ninety francs.

'There's some more of your money making itself scarce!' growled

Véronique in the passage. 'If I had been you, I would have told her to

go and find her change. It is abominable that you should be plundered

in this way!'

When Pauline came back with the receipted account, which she handed to

her aunt, the priest was radiant with triumph. Chanteau was vanquished;

he had not a piece which he could move. The sun was setting, and the

sea was crimsoned by its oblique rays, while the tide lazily rose.

Louise, with a far-off look in her eyes, smiled at the bright and

wide-stretching horizon.

'There's our little Louise up in the clouds,' said Madame Chanteau.

'I have had your trunk taken upstairs, Louisette. We are next-door

neighbours again.'

Lazare did not return home till the following day. After his visit to

the Sub-Prefect at Bayeux he had taken it into his head to go on to

Caen and see the Prefect. And, though he was not bringing an actual

subvention back in his pocket, he was convinced, he said, that the

General Council[5] would vote at the least a sum of twelve thousand

francs. The Prefect had accompanied him to the door and had bound

himself by formal promises, saying that it was impossible Bonneville

should be left to its fate, and that the authorities were quite

prepared to back up the efforts of the inhabitants. Lazare, however,

could not help feeling despondent, for he foresaw all sorts of delays,

and the least delay in the carrying-out of one of his schemes proved

agony to him.

'Upon my word of honour,' he cried, 'if I had the twelve thousand

francs myself, I should be delighted to advance them! For the first

experimental proceedings, indeed, so much would not be necessary. When

we do get the money voted, you will see what a heap of worries and

delays we shall have to go through. We shall have all the engineers in

the department down here on our backs. But if we could make a start

without them, they would be obliged to acquiesce in what had actually

been done. The Prefect, to whom I briefly explained our plans, was

quite struck with their advantage and simplicity.'

The hope of overpowering the sea now thrilled him feverishly. He

had felt bitter rancour against it ever since he had considered it

responsible for his failure with the sea-weed scheme; and, though he

did not venture to openly revile it, he harboured the thought of coming

vengeance. And what revenge could be better than to stay it in its

course of blind destruction, and call out to it, like its master, 'Thus

far and no farther'?

There was, also, in this enterprise an element of philanthropy

which, joined to the grandeur of the contemplated struggle, brought

his excitement to a climax. When his mother saw him spending his

days cutting out pieces of wood and burying his nose in treatises

on mechanics, she thought, with trembling, of his grandfather, the

enterprising but blundering carpenter, whose useless masterpiece lay

slumbering in its glass case on the mantelshelf. Was the old man going

to live over again in his grandson to consummate the ruin of the

family? Then she gradually allowed herself to be convinced and won over

by the son whom she worshipped. If he were successful, and, of course,

he would be successful, this would be the first step to fame, glorious

and disinterested work which would make him celebrated. With this as a

starting-point he might easily soar as high as ambition might prompt

him. Henceforth the whole family dreamt of nothing but conquering the

sea and of chaining it to the foot of the terrace, submissive like a

whipped dog.

Lazare's scheme was, as he had said, one of great simplicity. He

proposed to drive big piles into the sand, and to cover them with

planks. Behind these the shingle, swept up by the tide, would form

a sort of impregnable wall against which the waves would break

powerlessly, and, by this means, the sea itself would build the barrier

which was to keep it back. A number of groynes, built of long beams

carried upon strong rafters forming a breakwater in front of the wall

of shingle, would complete the works. Afterwards, if they had the

necessary funds, they might construct two or three big stockades, whose

solid mass would restrain the very highest tides. Lazare had found

the first idea of his scheme in a 'Carpenter's Complete Handbook,' a

little volume with quaint engravings, which had probably been bought

long ago by his grandfather. He elaborated and perfected the idea,

and went into the matter pretty deeply, studying the theory of forces

and the resistance of which the different materials were capable, and

manifesting considerable pride in a certain disposition and inclination

of the beams, which, said he, could not fail to insure absolute success.

Pauline once more showed great interest in her cousin's studies. Like

the young man's, her curiosity was always aroused by experiments in

strange things. But, with her more calculating nature, she did not

deceive herself as to the possibility of failure. When she saw the tide

mount up, her eyes wandered with an expression of doubt to the models

which Lazare had made, the miniature piles and groynes and stockades.

The big room was now quite full of them.

One night the girl lingered till very late at her window. For the last

two days her cousin had been talking of burning all his models; and one

evening, as they all sat round the table, he had exclaimed in a sudden

outburst that he was going off to Australia, as there was no room for

him in France. Pauline was meditating over all this by her window,

while the flood-tide dashed against Bonneville in the darkness. Each

shock of the waves made her quiver, and she seemed to hear, at regular

intervals, the cries of poor creatures whom the sea was swallowing up.

Then the struggle which was still waging within her between love of

money and natural kindliness became unendurable, and she closed the

window, that she might no longer hear. But the distant blows still

seemed to shake her as she lay in bed. Why not try to attempt even what

seemed impossible? What would it matter, throwing all this money into

the sea, if there were yet a single chance of saving the village? And

she fell asleep at daybreak dreaming of the joy her cousin would feel

when he should find himself released from all his brooding melancholy,

set at last perhaps on the right path, happy through her, indebted to

her for everything.

In the morning, before going downstairs, she called him. She was

laughing.

'Do you know that last night I dreamt that I had lent you those twelve

thousand francs?'

But Lazare became angry and refused in violent words: 'Do you want to

make me set off and never come back again? No! we lost quite enough

over the sea-weed works. I am really dying of shame about it, though I

told you nothing.'

Two hours later, however, he accepted Pauline's offer, and pressed her

hands in a passionate outburst of gratitude. It was to be an advance

and nothing more. Her money would be running no risk, for there was

not the least doubt that the subvention would be voted by the Council,

the more especially if operations were actually commenced. That very

evening the Arromanches carpenter was called in. There were endless

consultations and walks along the coast, with a perpetual discussion of

estimates. The whole family went wild over the scheme.

Madame Chanteau, however, had first flown into a tantrum on hearing of

the loan of the twelve thousand francs. Lazare was astonished, unable

to understand. His mother overwhelmed him with strange arguments. No

doubt, said she, Pauline advanced small sums to them from time to

time, but, if this kind of thing were to go on, she would begin to

think herself indispensable. It would have been better to have asked

Louise's father for an advance. Louise herself, who would have a dowry

of two hundred thousand francs, did not make nearly so much fuss about

her money. Those two hundred thousand francs of Louise's were ever on

Madame Chanteau's lips, and seemed to fill her with angry contempt

for the remnants of that other fortune which had dwindled away in the

secrétaire and was still dwindling in the chest of drawers.

Chanteau, too, instigated by his wife, pretended to be greatly vexed.

Pauline felt very much hurt. She recognised that they loved her less

now, even though she was giving them her money. There seemed to be a

bitter feeling against her, which increased day by day, though she

could not even guess the cause of it. As for Doctor Cazenove, he found

fault with her, too, when she mentioned the subject to him as a matter

of form, but he had been obliged to acquiesce in all the loans, the

large as well as the small ones. His office of trustee was a mere

fiction; he found himself quite disarmed in that house, where he was

always received as an old friend. On the day when the twelve thousand

francs were lent to Lazare he renounced all further responsibility.

'My dear,' he said, as he took Pauline aside, 'I cannot go on being

your accomplice. Don't consult me any more; ruin yourself just as you

like. You know very well that I can never resist your entreaties; but

I am really very much troubled about them afterwards. I would rather

remain ignorant of what I cannot approve.'

Pauline looked at him, deeply moved. After a moment's silence she

replied:

'Thank you, my dear friend. But am I not really taking the right

course? If it makes me happy, what does anything else matter?'

He took her hands within his own and pressed them in a fatherly manner,

with an expression of affection that was tinged with sadness.

'Well! if it does make you happy! After all, one has to pay quite as

much sometimes to make one's self miserable.'

As might have been expected, in the enthusiasm of his approaching

struggle with the sea Lazare had entirely abandoned his music. There

was a coating of dust upon the piano, and the score of his great

symphony was put away at the bottom of a drawer; a service which he

owed to Pauline, who collected the different sheets together, finding

some of them hidden even behind the furniture. With certain portions of

the work he had grown much dissatisfied, and had begun to think that

the celestial joy of final annihilation, which he had expressed in a

somewhat commonplace fashion in waltz time, would be better rendered by

a very slow march. One evening, indeed, he had declared that he would

re-write the whole work when he had the leisure.

His flash of desire and feeling of uneasiness in the society of his

young cousin seemed to disappear when his musical enthusiasm drooped.

His masterpiece must be deferred to a more suitable time, and his

passion, which he also seemed able to advance or retard, must be

similarly postponed. He again began to treat Pauline as an old friend

or long since wedded wife, who would fall into his arms as soon as ever

he chose to open them. Since April they had not shut themselves up in

the house so much, and the fresh air brought life and colour to their

cheeks. The big room was deserted, while they rambled about the rocky

shore of Bonneville, studying the best situations for the piles and

stockades. And, after dabbling about in the water, they came home as

tired and as easy in mind as in the far-away days of childhood. When

Pauline sometimes played the famous March of Death to tease him, Lazare

would cry out:

'Do be quiet! What a lot of rubbish!'

On the evening of the carpenter's visit, however, Chanteau was seized

with another attack of gout. He now had a fresh attack almost every

month. The salicylic treatment, which at first had given him some

relief, seemed in the end to add to the violence of his seizures. For

a fortnight Pauline remained a close prisoner at her uncle's bedside.

Lazare, who was continuing his investigations on the beach, then

invited Louise to go with him, by way of freeing her from the cries of

the sick man, which quite frightened her. As she occupied the guests'

bedroom, the one just above Chanteau's, she had to stuff her fingers

into her ears and bury her head in the pillows at night-time in order

to get some sleep. But when she was out of doors she became radiant

again, enjoying the walk immensely and forgetting all about the poor

man groaning in the house.

They had a delightful fortnight. The young man had at first gazed on

his companion with surprise. She was a great change from Pauline;

she cried out whenever a crab scuttled past her shoe, and was so

frightened of the sea that she thought she was going to be drowned

whenever she had to jump over a pool. The shingle hurt her little feet,

she never relinquished her sunshade, and was for ever gloved up to

her elbows, being in a constant state of fear lest her delicate skin

should be exposed to the sun's rays. After his first astonishment,

however, Lazare allowed himself to be attracted by her pretty airs

of timidity, and her weakness, that ever seemed to be appealing to

him for assistance. She did not smell simply of the breezy air, like

Pauline; she intoxicated him with a warm odour of heliotrope, and he

no longer had a boy-like companion at his side, but a young woman,

whose presence now and then sent his blood pulsing hotly through his

veins. True, she was not as pretty as Pauline; she was older, and

seemed already a little faded, but there was a bewitching charm about

her; her small limbs moved with easy supple motion, and her whole

coquettish figure seemed instinct with promises of bliss. She appeared

to Lazare to be quite a discovery on his part; he could recognise in

her no trace of the scraggy little girl he had formerly known. Was it

really possible that long years at boarding-school had turned that very

ordinary-looking child into such a disquieting young woman, who, maiden

though she was, seemed by no means shy? Little by little Lazare found

himself possessed by growing admiration, disturbing passion, in which

the mere friendship of childhood disappeared.

When Pauline was able to leave her uncle's bedroom and resume

companionship with Lazare, she immediately noticed a change between him

and Louise, unaccustomed glances and laughs, in which she had no share.

For the first few days she maintained a sort of maternal attitude,

treating the pair as foolish young things whom a mere nothing was

sufficient to amuse. But she soon grew low-spirited, and the walks they

all took abroad seemed to weary her. She never made any complaint, she

simply spoke of persistent headaches; but, later on, when her cousin

advised her to stay at home, she became vexed, and would not quit him

even in the house. On one occasion, about two o'clock in the morning,

Lazare, who had sat up in his room working at a plan, thought he heard

some steps outside, and opened his door to look. Thereupon he was

astonished to see Pauline in her petticoats leaning over the banisters

in the dark, and listening. She declared that she thought she had heard

a cry downstairs. But she blushed as she told this fib, and Lazare did

the same, for a suspicion flashed through his mind. From that night

forward, without anything being said, friendly relations suffered.

Lazare considered that Pauline made herself very ridiculous by pouting

and sulking about mere nothings, while she, continually growing more

gloomy, never once left her cousin alone with Louise, but kept a strict

watch over them, and tortured herself with fancies at night if she had

caught them speaking softly to each other as they walked home from the

shore.

However, the work had begun. A body of carpenters, after nailing a

number of heavy planks across a framework of piles, succeeded in

completing a first buttress against the sea's attack. This was simply

meant as a trial, which they hurried along with, in expectation of a

flood tide. If the timbers should be able to resist the sea's approach,

then the system of defence would be completed. It unfortunately

happened that the weather was execrable. Rain fell continually, and all

Bonneville got soaked to the skin in going out to see the piles rammed

into the sand. Then, on the morning when the high tide was expected, an

inky pall hung over the sea, and, from eight o'clock the rain fell with

redoubled violence, hiding the horizon with a dense cold mist. There

was immense disappointment, for the Chanteaus had been planning to go

in a family party to watch the victory which their beams and piles

would win over the attacking flood.

Madame Chanteau determined to remain at home with her husband, who was

still far from well. Great efforts, too, were made to induce Pauline to

stay indoors, as she had been suffering from a sore throat for a week

past, and always grew a little feverish towards the evening. But she

rejected all the prudent advice that was offered her, resolving to go

down to the beach, since Lazare and Louise were going. Louise, fragile

as she appeared to be, ever, so it seemed, on the verge of fainting,

really proved a girl of great physical endurance, particularly when any

kind of pleasure made her excited.

They all three set off after breakfast. A sudden breeze had swept away

the clouds, and glad smiles hailed the unexpected change. The patches

of blue sky overhead were so large, though they still mingled with

black masses, that the girls refused to take any other protection than

their sun-shades. Lazare alone carried an umbrella. He would see that

they came to no harm, he said, and would place them under shelter

somewhere should the rain begin to fall again.

Pauline and Louise walked on in front. However, on the steep slope

leading down towards Bonneville, the latter stumbled on the wet

and slippery soil, and Lazare rushed up to support her. Pauline

then followed behind them. Her high spirits quickly fell, as with a

jealous glance she noticed her cousin's arm pressed closely against

Louise's waist. The contact of the two soon absorbed her; all else

disappeared--the beach, where the fishermen of the neighbourhood stood

waiting in a somewhat scoffing mood, and the rising tide, and the

stockade already white with foam. Away on the right arose a mass of

dark clouds, lashed on by the gale.

'What a nuisance!' said the young man; 'we are going to have more rain.

But we shall have time to see things before it comes on, I think, and

then we can take refuge close at hand with the Houtelards.'

The tide, which had the wind against it, was rising with irritating

slowness. The wind would certainly keep it from mounting as high as

had been expected. Still no one left the shore. The new groyne, which

was now half covered, seemed to work very satisfactorily, parting

the waves, whose diverted waters foamed up to the very feet of the

spectators. But the greatest triumph was the successful resistance of

the piles. As each wave dashed against them, sweeping the shingle with

it, they heard the stones falling and collecting on the other side

of the beams with a noise like the sudden discharge of a cartload of

pebbles; and this wall which was thus gradually building itself up

seemed to guarantee success.

'Didn't I tell you so?' cried Lazare. 'You won't make any more jokes

about it now, I think!'

Prouane, who was standing near him, and had not been sober for the last

three days, shook his head, however, as he stammered: 'We shall see

about that when the wind blows against it.'

The other fishermen kept silent. But the expression on the faces of

Cuche and Houtelard plainly showed that they felt little confidence in

all such contrivances; indeed, they would scarcely have felt pleased

to see their enemy the sea, which crushed them so victoriously, beaten

back by that stripling of a landsman. How they would laugh when the

waves some day carried off those beams like so many straws! The very

village might be dashed to pieces at the same time; it would be rare

fun all the same!

Suddenly the rain began to fall; great drops poured from the lurid

clouds, which had covered three-quarters of the sky.

'Oh! this is nothing!' cried Lazare in a state of wild enthusiasm.

'Let's stay a little longer. Just look! not a single pile moves!'

While speaking he set his umbrella over Louise's head. She pressed to

his side with the air of a frightened turtle-dove. Pauline, whom they

seemed to have forgotten, never ceased to watch them. She felt enraged;

the warmth of their clasp seemed to set her cheeks on fire. But the

rain was now coming down in a perfect torrent, and Lazare suddenly

turned round and called to her: 'What are you thinking of? Are you mad?

At all events, open your sunshade!'

She was standing stiffly erect beneath the downpour, which she did not

seem to notice. And she simply answered in a hoarse voice: 'Leave me

alone. I am all right.'

'Oh! Lazare!' cried Louise, quite distressed, 'make her come here!

There is room under the umbrella for all three of us.'

But Pauline, in her angry obstinacy, did not condescend to notice the

invitation. She was all right; why couldn't they let her alone? And

when Lazare, at the conclusion of his fruitless entreaties, finished by

saying: 'It's folly! Let's run to the Houtelards!' she answered rudely,

'Run wherever you like. I came here to see, and I mean to stop.'

The fishermen had fled. Pauline remained alone beneath the pouring

rain, with her eyes turned towards the piles, which were now covered by

the waves. The spectacle seemed to absorb all her attention, in spite

of the grey mist which was rising from the rain-beaten sea, obscuring

everything. Big black marks appeared on her streaming dress, about her

shoulders and arms, but she would not leave her place till the west

wind had swept the storm-cloud away.

They all three returned home in silence. Not a word of what had

happened was mentioned to Madame Chanteau. Pauline hurried off to

change her clothes, while Lazare recounted the complete success of

the experiment. In the evening, as they sat at table, Pauline became

feverish, but she pretended there was nothing the matter with her, in

spite of the evident difficulty she had in swallowing her food; and she

even ended by speaking very roughly to Louise, who evinced solicitude

in her caressing way, and perpetually asked her how she felt.

'The girl is really growing quite unbearable with her bad disposition,'

murmured Madame Chanteau behind Pauline's back. 'We had better give

over speaking to her.'

About one o'clock in the morning Lazare was roused by a hoarse cough,

which sounded so distressingly that he sat up in bed to listen. At

first he thought it came from his mother; then, as he went on straining

his ear, he heard a noise as of something falling, and his floor shook.

Forthwith he jumped out of bed and hastily put on his clothes. It could

only be Pauline, who must have fallen on the other side of the wall.

He broke several matches with his trembling hands, but, at last, when

he had succeeded in lighting his candle and came out of his room, he

found the door opposite wide open, and the young girl lying on her side

and barring the entrance.

'What is the matter?' Lazare cried in amazement. 'Have you fallen?'

It had just flashed through his mind that she was prowling about again,

playing the spy. But she made no reply, and never even stirred; in

fact, with her closed eyes, she seemed to him to be dead. There could

be no doubt that just as she was leaving her room to seek assistance a

fainting-fit had thrown her on the ground.

'Pauline, speak to me, I beg you! What is the matter with you?'

He had bent down and was holding the light to her face. She was

extremely flushed, and seemed a prey to violent fever. Then all

hesitation on his part vanished, and he took her up in his arms and

carried her to her bed full of fraternal anxiety. When he had placed

her in bed again, he began to question her once more, 'For goodness'

sake, do speak to me! Have you hurt yourself?'

She had just opened her eyes, but she could not yet speak, and merely

looked at him with a fixed gaze. Then, as he still continued to press

her with questions, she carried her hand to her throat.

'It is your throat that hurts you, is it?'

At last, in a strange voice, that seemed to come with immense

difficulty, she gasped:

'Don't make me speak, please. It hurts me so.'

As she said this she was seized with another attack of coughing, the

same hoarse guttural cough that he had heard from his bedroom. Her face

turned bluish, and her distress became so great that her eyes filled

with tears. She lifted her hands to her poor trembling brow, which was

quivering with the hammer-like throbs of a frightful headache.

'You caught that to-day!' he stammered, quite distracted. 'It was very

foolish of you to act as you did, when you were already far from well!'

But he checked himself, as he saw her looking up at him with a gaze of

entreaty.

'Just open your mouth and let me look at your throat.'

It was all she could do to open her jaws. Lazare brought the candle

close to her, and was with difficulty able to espy the back of her

throat, which was dry, and gleamed with a bright crimson. It was

evidently a case of angina, and her burning fever and terrible headache

filled him with alarm as to its precise nature. The poor girl's face

wore such an agonised expression of choking that he was seized with a

horrible fear of seeing her suffocated before his very eyes. She was

not able to swallow; every attempt to do so made her whole body quiver.

At last a fresh attack of coughing threw her into another fainting-fit;

and thereupon in a state of complete panic he flew off to thump at

Véronique's door.

'Véronique! Véronique! Get up! Pauline is dying.'

When Véronique, half-dressed and scared, entered the girl's room, she

found Lazare excitedly talking to himself in the middle of it.

'What a forsaken hole to be in! One might die here like a dog! There is

no help to be had nearer than a couple of miles!'

He strode up to Véronique.

'Try and get someone to go for the Doctor immediately,' he said.

The servant stepped up to the bed and looked at the sick girl. She was

quite alarmed at seeing her so flushed, and in her increasing affection

for Pauline, whom she had at first so cordially detested, she felt a

painful shock.

'I'll go myself,' she said quietly. 'That will be the quickest way.

Madame will be quite able to light a fire downstairs, if you want one.'

Then, scarcely yet fully awake, she put on her heavy boots and wrapped

a shawl round her; and, after telling Madame Chanteau what the matter

was as she went downstairs, she set off, striding along the muddy road.

Two o'clock rang out from the church, and the night was so dark that

she stumbled every now and then against heaps of stones.

'What is it, then?' asked Madame Chanteau, as she came upstairs.

Lazare scarcely answered her. He had just been ferreting about in the

cupboard for his old medical treatises, and was now bending down before

the chest of drawers, turning over the pages of one of his books with

trembling fingers, while trying to remember something of what he had

formerly learnt. But he grew more and more confused, and perpetually

turned to the index without being able to find what he wanted.

'It's only a bad sick headache,' said Madame Chanteau, who had sat

down. 'The best thing we can do is to leave her to sleep.'

At this Lazare burst out angrily:

'A sick headache! A sick headache indeed! You will drive me quite mad,

mother, by standing there so unconcernedly. Go down stairs and get some

water to boil.'

'There is no necessity to disturb Louise, is there?' she asked.

'No, indeed, not the least. I don't require anybody's assistance. If I

want anything I will call you.'

When he was alone again, he went and took hold of Pauline's wrist to

try her pulse. He counted one hundred and fifteen pulsations; and he

felt the girl's burning hand cling closely and lingeringly to his

own. Her heavy eyelids remained closed, but she was thanking him and

forgiving him with that pressure of her hand. Though she was unable to

smile, she still wanted to let him understand that she had heard and

was pleased to know that he was there alone with her, without a thought

for anybody else. Generally, he had a horror of all suffering, and took

himself off at the slightest appearance of indisposition in any of his

relatives, for he was a shockingly bad nurse, and was so unable to

control his nerves that he ever feared lest he should burst out crying.

And so it was a pleasant surprise to Pauline to see him now so anxious

and devoted. He himself could not have explained the warmth of feeling

that was upbuoying him, or the necessity he felt of relying on himself

alone to give her relief. The pressure of her little hand upset him,

and he tried to cheer her.

'It's nothing at all, my dear. I am expecting Cazenove directly; but we

needn't feel the least alarm.'

She still kept her eyes closed as she murmured, apparently still in

pain: 'Oh! I'm not at all frightened. What troubles me most is to see

you so much disturbed.'

Then, in a still lower voice, barely a whisper, she added: 'Have you

forgiven me yet? I behaved very wickedly this morning.'

He bent down and kissed her brow as though she were his wife. Then he

stepped aside, for his tears were blinding him. The idea occurred to

him that he might as well prepare a sleeping-draught while waiting for

the doctor's arrival. Pauline's little medicine-chest was in a small

cupboard in the room. He felt a little afraid lest he should make

some mistake, and he looked closely at the different phials; finally

he poured a few drops of morphia into a glass of sugared water. When

she swallowed a spoonful of it, the pain in her throat became so great

that he hesitated about giving her a second. There was nothing else

he could do. That spell of inactive waiting was becoming terribly

painful to him. When he could no longer endure to stand beside her bed

and see her suffering, he turned to his books again, hoping to find

therein an account of her malady and its remedy. Could it be a case of

diphtheritic angina? He had certainly not seen any malignant growth on

the roof of her mouth, but he plunged into the perusal of a description

of that complaint and its treatment, losing himself in a maze of long

sentences whose meaning he could not gather, and striving to grope

through superfluous details, like a child battling with some lesson he

cannot understand. By-and-by a sigh brought him hurrying back to the

bedside, with his head buzzing with scientific terms, whose uncouth

syllables only served to increase his anxiety.

'Well, how is she getting on?' inquired Madame Chanteau, who had come

softly upstairs again.

'Oh! she keeps just the same,' Lazare replied.

Then, in a burst of impatience, he added:

'It is terrible, this delay on the Doctor's part! The girl might die

twenty times over!'

The doors had been left open, and Matthew, who slept under the table

in the kitchen, had also just come up the stairs, for it was his habit

to follow people into every room of the house. His big paws pattered

over the floor like old woollen slippers. He seemed quite gay at all

this commotion in the middle of the night, and wanted to jump up to

Pauline, and even tried to wheel round after his tail, like an animal

unconscious of his master's trouble. But Lazare, irritated by his

inopportune gaiety, gave him a kick.

'Be off with you, or I'll choke you! Can't you understand, you idiot?'

The dog, afraid of a beating, and, it may be, suddenly grasping the

situation, went to lie down under the bed. But Lazare's rough behaviour

had aroused Madame Chanteau's indignation. Without waiting any longer

she went down to the kitchen again, saying drily: 'The water will be

ready whenever you want it.'

As she descended the stairs Lazare heard her muttering that it was

abominable to kick an animal like that, and that he would probably

have kicked her also if she had remained in the room. Every moment he

went to the bedside to glance at Pauline. She now seemed to be quite

overcome with fever, utterly prostrate; the only sign of life that came

from her was the wheezing of her breath amidst the mournful silence of

the room, a wheezing that began to sound like a death-rattle. Then wild

unreasoning fear again seized upon Lazare. He felt quite certain that

the girl would soon choke if help did not arrive. He fidgeted about the

room on tip-toes, glancing perpetually at the timepiece. It was not

three o'clock, and Véronique could hardly have got to the Doctor's yet.

He followed her in imagination through the black night all along the

road to Arromanches. By this time she would be passing the oak-wood;

then she would cross the little bridge, and then she would save five

minutes by running down the hill. At last a longing for tidings of some

sort led him to throw open the window, though it was quite impossible

for him to distinguish anything amidst the profound darkness. Down in

the depths of Bonneville only a single light was gleaming, the lantern,

probably, of some fisherman preparing to put out to sea. Everything

was wrapped in mournful sadness, far-reaching abandonment, in which

all life appeared to die away. He closed the window and then opened it

again, only to close it quickly once more. He began to lose all idea

of the flight of time, and was startled when he heard three o'clock

strike. By this time the Doctor must have got his horse harnessed, and

his gig would be spinning along the road, transpiercing the darkness

with the yellow glare of its lamp. Lazare grew so distracted with

impatience as he watched the sick girl's increasing suffocation that

he started up as from a dream, when, at about four o'clock, he finally

heard some rapid footsteps on the stairs.

'Ah! here you are at last!' he cried.

Doctor Cazenove at once ordered a second candle to be lighted, in order

that he might examine Pauline properly. Lazare held one of the candles,

while Véronique, whose hair the wind had thrown into wild disorder, and

who was splashed with mud to the waist, stood at the head of the bed

with the other. Madame Chanteau looked on. The sick girl was in a state

of semi-somnolence, and could not open her mouth without a groan of

pain. When the Doctor had laid her back in bed again, he, who upon his

first entrance had shown signs of great uneasiness, stepped into the

middle of the room with an expression of relief.

'That Véronique of yours put me into a pretty fright,' said he. 'She

told me such a lot of terrible things that I thought the girl must have

got poisoned, and you see that I have come with my pockets crammed full

of drugs.'

'It is angina, is it not?' Lazare asked.

'Yes, simple angina. There is no occasion for alarm at present.'

Madame Chanteau indulged in a little gesture of triumph, as much as to

say that she had known that from the first.

'"No occasion for alarm at present"!' repeated Lazare, his fears rising

again. 'Are you afraid of complications?'

'No,' answered the Doctor, after some slight hesitation; 'but with

these tiresome throat complaints one can never feel quite sure of

anything.'

He added that nothing more could be done just then, and that he would

prefer waiting till the morrow to bleed the patient. But as the young

man pressed him to attempt at any rate some alleviating measures, he

expressed his readiness to apply some sinapisms. Véronique brought

up a bowl of warm water, and the Doctor himself placed the damped

mustard-leaves in position, slipping them along the girl's legs from

her ankles to her knees. But they only increased her discomfort,

for the fever continued unabated and her head was still throbbing

frightfully. Emollient gargles were also suggested, and Madame Chanteau

prepared a decoction of nettle-leaves, which had to be laid aside,

however, after a first attempt to administer it, for pain rendered

Pauline unable to swallow. It was nearly six o'clock, and dawn was

breaking when the Doctor went away.

'I will come back about noon,' he said to Lazare on the landing. 'Be

quite easy. She is all right, except for the pain.'

'And is the pain nothing?' cried the young man. 'One never ought to

suffer like that!'

Cazenove glanced at him, and then raised his hands to heaven at such an

extraordinary pretension.

When Lazare returned to Pauline's room, he sent his mother and

Véronique to get a little sleep. He himself could not have slept if

he had tried. He watched the day breaking in that disorderly room:

the mournful dawn it was that follows a night of agony. With his

brow pressed to the window-pane, he was looking out hopelessly at

the gloomy sky, when a sudden noise made him turn. He thought it was

Pauline getting up in bed, but it was Matthew, who had been forgotten

by everybody, and who had at last crept from under the bed to go to

the girl, whose hand hung down over the counterpane. And the dog began

licking that hand with such affectionate gentleness that Lazare, quite

touched at the sight, put his arm round his neck, and said:

'Ah! my poor fellow, your mistress is ill, you see; but she'll soon be

all right, and then we'll all three go on our rambles once more.'

Pauline had opened her eyes, and, though it pained her, she smiled.

A period of suffering and sadness followed. Lazare, acting upon an

impulse of wild affection, almost refused to let the others enter the

sick-room. He would barely allow his mother and Louise there in the

morning to inquire after Pauline; Véronique, in whom he now recognised

a genuine affection for his cousin, was the only one whose presence he

tolerated. At the outset of Pauline's illness Madame Chanteau tried

to make him understand the impropriety of a young man thus nursing

a girl; but he retorted by asking if he were not her husband, and

by saying that doctors attended women equally with men. Between the

young people themselves there was never the slightest embarrassment.

Suffering and, it might be, the approach of death obliterated all other

considerations. The world ceased to have any existence for them. The

chief matters of interest were that the draughts should be taken at the

proper times, and such little details, whilst they waited hour by hour

for the illness to take a more favourable turn. Thus minor matters of

mere physical life suddenly assumed enormous importance, as on them

depended joy or sorrow. The nights followed the days, and Lazare's

existence seemed to hang in the balance over a deep abyss into whose

black darkness he ever feared to fall.

Doctor Cazenove came to see Pauline each morning, and sometimes called

again in the evening after dinner. Upon his second visit he had

determined to bleed her freely. The fever, however, though checked

for a time, reappeared. Two days passed, and the Doctor was evidently

disturbed in his mind, unable to understand the tenacity with which the

fever clung to his patient. As the girl felt ever-increasing pain in

opening her mouth, he could not make any proper examination of the back

of her throat, which seemed to him to be much swollen and of a livid

hue. At last, as Pauline complained of increasing tightness, which

made her throat feel as though it would burst, the Doctor one morning

remarked to Lazare:

'I am beginning to suspect the presence of a phlegmon.'

The young man then drew him into his own room. The previous evening,

while turning over the pages of an old Manual of Pathology, he had

read the chapter on retro-pharyngeal abscesses which project into the

œsophagus, and are apt to cause death by suffocation from compressing

the windpipe.

He turned very pale as he asked:

'Then she is going to die?'

'I trust not,' the Doctor answered. 'We must wait and see what happens.'

But Cazenove himself could not conceal his uneasiness. He confessed

that he was almost powerless in the present circumstances of the case.

How could they search for an abscess at the back of a contracted mouth?

And, besides, to open the abscess too soon would be attended with

grave danger. The best thing they could do was to leave the matter

in the hands of Nature, though the illness would probably prove very

protracted and painful.

'Well, I am not the Divinity,' he exclaimed, when Lazare reproached him

with the uselessness of his science.

The affection which Doctor Cazenove felt for Pauline showed itself in

an increased assumption of brusque carelessness. That tall old man, who

seemed as dry as a branch of brier, was really much affected. For more

than thirty years he had knocked about the world, changing from vessel

to vessel, and working in hospitals all over the colonies. He had

treated epidemics on board ship, frightful diseases in tropical climes,

elephantiasis at Cayenne, serpent bites in India; and he had killed

men of every colour; had studied the effects of poison on Chinese, and

risked the lives of Negroes in delicate experiments in vivisection.

But now this girl, with a soreness in her throat, so wrought upon his

feelings that he could not sleep. His iron hands trembled, and his

callousness to death failed him, fearful as he was of a fatal issue.

And so, wishing to conceal an emotion which he considered unworthy of

him, he made a pretence of contempt for suffering. 'People were born

to suffer,' said he, 'so why make a fuss about it?'

Every morning Lazare said to him:

'Do try something else, Doctor, I beg you. It is terrible. She cannot

get a moment's rest. She has been crying out all the night.'

'Well, but, dash it all, it isn't my fault!' the Doctor replied,

working himself up to a high pitch of indignation. 'I can't cut off her

neck to cure her.'

Thereupon the young man grew vexed in his turn, and exclaimed:

'So medicine is worth nothing?'

'Nothing at all when the human machine is out of order. Quinine arrests

fever, and purgatives act on the bowels, and bleeding is useful in

apoplexy, but it's a happy-go-lucky business with almost everything

else. We must leave the case to Nature.'

These remarks were wrung from him by his anger at being unable to

discover what course of treatment to adopt. It was not his ordinary

custom to deny the power of medicine so roundly, for he had practised

it too much to be sceptical or modest as to its merits. For whole hours

he would sit by the girl's bedside, watching her and studying her, and

then he would go off without even leaving a single instruction behind

him, for indeed he knew not what to do, and was compelled to leave the

abscess developing, though he recognised that a hair's breadth more or

less in its size might make all the difference between life and death.

For a whole week Lazare gave himself up to the most terrible alarm.

He, too, was in perpetual fear of seeing Nature's work suddenly cease.

At every painful, difficult gasp that the girl gave he thought that

all was over. He formed in his mind a vivid picture of the phlegmon,

he fancied he could see it blocking Pauline's windpipe; if it were

only to swell a little more her breath would no longer be able to

pass. His two years of imperfect medical study served to increase his

alarm. His fears made him lose his head, and he broke out into nervous

mutiny, excited protest against life. Why was such frightful suffering

permitted? Was not all such bodily torture, all such writhing and

burning pain cruelly purposeless when disease fell on a poor weak girl?

He was for ever at her bedside, questioning her, even at the risk of

fatiguing her. Was she still in pain? How was she feeling now?

Sometimes he would take her hand and lay it upon his neck. It felt like

an intolerable weight there, like a ball of molten lead, which throbbed

till he almost choked. Her headache never left her. She did not know

where or how to rest her head, and she was tortured by sleeplessness.

During the ten days that the fever racked her she scarcely slept

for a couple of hours. One evening, to make things still worse, she

experienced a frightful pain in her ears, and fainted from sheer

suffering. But she did not confess to Lazare all the agony she endured.

She showed great courage and fortitude, recognising that he was almost

as ill as she herself was, his own blood hot with fever, and his throat

choked as by an abscess. She frequently even told fibs, and forced

a smile to her lips when racked by the keenest suffering. She felt

easier, she would say, and she would beg him to go and take a little

rest. One of the most painful features of her illness was that she

could not even swallow her saliva without giving a cry, at which Lazare

would start up in alarm, and begin to question her afresh. What was the

matter, and where did she feel pain? Then, with her eyes closed, and

her face distorted by agony, she would try to deceive him and whisper

that it was a mere nothing, that something had tickled her, and that

was all.

'Go to sleep and don't be uneasy. I am going to sleep myself now.'

Every evening she went through this pretence of going to sleep, in

order to induce him to lie down, but he persisted in watching over her

from his arm-chair. The nights were so full of anguish that they never

saw the evening fall without a sort of superstitious terror. Would they

ever see the sun again?

One night Lazare was leaning against the bed, holding Pauline's hand

in his own, as he often did, to let her know that he was there and

was not deserting her. Doctor Cazenove had gone off at ten o'clock,

angrily exclaiming that he could answer for nothing more. The young man

derived some consolation from the thought that Pauline herself was not

aware that she was in any imminent danger. In her hearing, only a mere

inflammation of the throat was spoken of, which, though very painful,

would pass away as easily as a cold in the head. The girl seemed quite

tranquil as to the outcome, and bravely retained a cheerful countenance

in spite of her sufferings. She smiled as she heard them forming plans

for the time when she would be well again. That very night she had once

more listened to Lazare arranging a stroll along the shore for the

first day that she might be able to go out. Then they grew silent, and

she seemed to sleep, but after an interval of a quarter of an hour or

so she said distinctly:

'You will have to marry some other girl, I think, my dear.'

He stared at her in amazement, feeling chilled to his bones.

'Why do you say that?' he asked.

She had opened her eyes, and was looking at him with an expression of

brave resignation.

'Ah! I know what is the matter with me, and I am glad that I do, for I

shall be able to kiss you all before I go.'

Then Lazare grew quite angry. It was insane to think such things.

Before a week was over she would be walking about. But he dropped her

hand and made an excuse for hurrying to his own room, for sobs were

choking him; and he threw himself down in the darkness upon his bed,

on which he had not slept for a long time now. A frightful conviction

suddenly wrung his heart. Pauline was going to die, perhaps that

very night. And the thought that she knew it, and that her silence

on the subject hitherto had been due to courageous consideration

for the feelings of others, even in the imminent presence of death,

completed his despair. She knew the truth; she would see her death

agony approach, and he would be there powerless! Already he saw them

saying their last good-bye. The whole mournful scene unfolded itself

before his eyes with heart-rending detail in the darkness of his room.

It was the end of everything, and he grasped his pillow in his arms

convulsively, and buried his head in it to drown the sound of his sobs.

The night, however, passed away without any misfortune. Then two days

went by without any noticeable change in the patient's condition.

Between her and Lazare a new bond had sprung up; the thought of death

was with them. Pauline made no further allusion to her critical

condition; she even forced herself to look cheerful; and Lazare, too,

succeeded in feigning perfect tranquillity, complete confidence in

seeing her leave her bed in a few days' time; yet both knew that they

were ever bidding each other good-bye in the long, loving glances which

their eyes exchanged. At night-time especially, as Lazare sat watching

by the girl's bedside, they recognised that each other's thoughts were

of that threatened eternal separation which kept them so reflective and

silent. Never before had they experienced such melting sadness or felt

such a complete blending of their beings.

One morning, as the sun was rising, Lazare felt quite astonished at the

calmness with which he was able to contemplate the idea of death. He

ransacked his memory, and he could only recall one occasion since the

commencement of Pauline's illness when he had felt a cold shudder at

the thought of ceasing to be. He had trembled, indeed, at the idea of

losing his companion; but that was another kind of fear, into which no

thought of the destruction of his own personality entered. His heart

bled within him, indeed, but it seemed as though this combat which he

was waging with death put him upon an equality with the foe, and gave

him courage to look it calmly in the face. Perhaps, too, his fatigue

and anxiety filled him with a drowsiness and weariness which numbed his

personal fears. He closed his eyes so that he might not see the rising

sun, and tried to recall all his old thrills of horror, by telling

himself that he, too, would have to die some day. But no reply came;

all that seemed to have become quite indifferent to him and to have

ceased to have any power to affect him. Even his pessimism seemed to

disappear in the presence of that sick-bed; and, far from plunging him

into hatred and contempt of the world, his mutinous outburst against

suffering was but a passionate longing for robust health, a wild love

of life. He no longer talked of blowing the earth into bits, as a

worn-out and uninhabitable planet. The one image which ever haunted

his mind was Pauline, hearty once more and walking with him arm in

arm beneath the bright sunshine; the only craving he felt was to lead

her, gay and firm of step, along the paths through which they had once

rambled together.

Yet it was that same day that Lazare felt sure of death's approach. At

eight o'clock in the morning Pauline was seized with attacks of nausea,

and each brought on dangerous symptoms of suffocation. Soon trembling

fits supervened, and the poor girl shook so terribly that her teeth

could be heard chattering. Lazare, in a state of frightful alarm,

shouted from the window that a lad should be sent to Arromanches at

once, although the doctor was expected, as usual, at eleven o'clock.

The house had fallen into mournful silence, and there had been a sad

void since Pauline's gay activity had no longer animated it. Chanteau

spent his days downstairs in moody silence, with his eyes fixed on his

legs, fearing lest he should be seized with another attack of gout

while there was no one to nurse him. Madame Chanteau usually forced

Louise to go out, and the pair of them, spending most of their time

in the open air, had by this time become very intimate and familiar.

Only Véronique's heavy step came and went everlastingly up and down the

stairs, breaking the silence of the landings and empty rooms. Lazare

had gone three times to lean over the banisters in his impatience

to learn whether the servant had been able to get anybody to take a

message to the doctor. He had just returned to Pauline's room and was

looking at the girl, who appeared to be a little easier, when the door,

which he had left ajar, creaked slightly.

'Well, Véronique?' he said.

But it was not Véronique; it was his mother. She had that day intended

to take Louise to see some of her friends in the neighbourhood of

Verchemont.

'Little Cuche has just gone,' she said. 'He can run fast.'

Then, after a short interval of silence, she asked: 'Is she no better?'

Lazare made no answer, but with a hopeless gesture pointed to Pauline,

who was lying motionless, as though she were quite dead, with her pale

face bathed in cold perspiration.

'Ah! we won't go to Verchemont, then,' his mother continued. 'It

seems very tenacious, this mysterious illness which no one seems to

understand. The poor girl has been sorely tried.'

She sat down and went on chattering in the same subdued monotonous

voice.

'We had meant to start at seven o'clock, but it happened that Louise

overslept herself. Everything seems to be falling on one this morning;

it almost looks as though it were done on purpose. The grocer from

Arromanches has just called with his bill, and I have been obliged to

pay him, and now the baker is downstairs. We spent forty francs on

bread again last month. I can't imagine where it all goes to!'

Lazare was not paying the least attention to what she said; he was too

much absorbed in his fears of a return of the shivering-fits. But that

monotonous flood of talk irritated him, and he tried to get his mother

to leave the room.

'Will you give Véronique a couple of towels and tell her to bring them

up to me?' he said.

'Of course I shall have to pay the baker,' his mother resumed, as

though she had not heard him. 'He has spoken to me, and so Véronique

can't tell him that I have gone out. Upon my word, I've had quite

enough of this house. It is becoming quite a burden. If Pauline were

not unfortunately so ill, she would advance me the ninety francs for

her board. It is the 20th to-day, so that there are only ten days to

wait before it will be due. The poor child seems so very weak----'

Lazare suddenly turned towards her.

'Well, what is it you want?' he asked.

'You don't happen to know where she keeps her money, do you?'

'No!'

'I dare say it's in her chest of drawers. You might just look.'

He refused with an angry gesture, and his hands quivered.

'I beseech you, mother, for pity's sake, do go away.'

These last remarks had been hurriedly exchanged at the far end of the

room. There was a moment's painful silence, which was broken by a clear

voice speaking from the bed:

'Lazare, just come and take the key from under my pillow, and give my

aunt what she wants.'

They were both quite startled. Lazare began to protest, for he was

very unwilling to open the drawer; but he was obliged to give way in

order that he might not distress Pauline. When he had given his mother

a hundred-franc note, and had slipped the key under Pauline's pillow

again, he saw that the girl was taken with another trembling-fit, which

shook her like a young aspen, and seemed likely to rend her in twain.

Two big tears trickled from her closed eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

Doctor Cazenove did not arrive before his usual time. He had seen

nothing of little Cuche, who was probably larking about amongst the

hedges. As soon as he heard what Lazare had to say and cast a hasty

glance at Pauline, he cried out: 'She is saved!'

That sickness and those alarming fits of trembling were simply

indications that the abscess had at last broken. There was no more

occasion to fear suffocation; the complaint would now gradually go off

of itself. Their joy was great; Lazare accompanied the Doctor out of

the room; and as Martin, the old sailor who had taken service with the

Doctor, drank a bumper of wine in the kitchen, everyone wanted to clink

glasses with him. Madame Chanteau and Louise drank some walnut liqueur.

'I never felt really alarmed,' said the former. 'I was sure there could

be nothing serious the matter with her.'

'That didn't prevent the poor dear from having an awful time of it!'

exclaimed Véronique. 'I'm more pleased than if some one had given me a

hundred sous.'

Just at that moment Abbé Horteur came in. He had called to make

inquiries, and he drank a glass of wine by way of doing like the rest.

Every day he had come in this way like a kindly neighbour; for, on his

first visit, Lazare had told him that he could not see the patient for

fear of alarming her, whereupon the priest had quietly replied that

he understood it, and had contented himself with mentioning the poor

girl's name when saying his masses. Chanteau, as he clinked glasses

with him, complimented him upon his spirit of tolerance.

'Well, you see, she is coming round nicely, without the help of an

_Oremus_!'

'Everyone is saved after his own fashion,' the priest declared

sententiously, as he drained his glass.

When the Doctor had left, Louise wanted to go upstairs to kiss Pauline.

The poor girl was still suffering much pain, but this was not now

regarded as of much account. Lazare gaily bade her take courage, and,

quite dropping all pretence, began even to exaggerate the danger

through which she had passed, telling her that three times already he

had believed that she was lying dead in his arms. Pauline, however,

manifested no exuberant delight at being saved; but she was conscious

of the joy of life, after having found the courage to look calmly upon

death's approach. An expression of loving emotion passed over her worn,

sad face as she pressed her cousin's hand and murmured to him, smiling:

'Ah! my dear, you can't escape after all, you see. I shall be your wife

yet.'

Her convalescence was heralded in by long slumbers. She slept for

whole days, quite calmly, breathing easily and regularly, steeped in

a strength-restoring torpor. Minouche, who had been banished from the

room during her period of prostration, took advantage of this quietness

to slip in again. She jumped lightly upon the bed, and immediately

lay down there, nestling beside her mistress. Indeed, she spent whole

days on it, revelling in the warmth of the blankets, or making an

interminable toilet, wearing away her fur by constant licking, but

performing each operation with such supple lightness that Pauline could

not even tell she was moving. At the same time Matthew, who, equally

with Minouche, was now granted free access to the room, snored like a

human being on the carpet by the side of the bed.

One of Pauline's first fancies was to have her young friends from the

village brought up to her room on the following Saturday. They had

just begun to allow her to eat boiled eggs after the very spare diet

to which she had been subjected for three weeks. Though she was still

very weak, she was able to sit up to receive the children. Lazare had

to go to the drawer again to find her some five-franc pieces. After she

had questioned her pensioners and had insisted on paying off what she

called her arrears, she became so thoroughly exhausted that she lay

back in a fainting condition. But she manifested great interest in the

piles, groynes, and stockades, and every day inquired if they still

remained firmly in position. Some of the timbers had already weakened,

and her cousin told a falsehood when he asserted that only the nailing

of a plank or two had ceased to hold. One morning, when she was alone,

she slipped out of bed, wishing to see the high tide dash against the

stockades in the distance; and this time again her budding strength

failed her, and she would have fallen to the ground if Véronique had

not come into the room in time to catch her in her arms.

'Ah! you naughty girl! I shall have to fasten you down in bed if you

don't behave more sensibly!' said Lazare with a smile.

He still persisted in watching over her, but he was completely worn

out with fatigue, and would drop asleep in his arm-chair. At first he

had felt a lively joy in seeing her drink her broth. The young girl's

restored health became a source of exquisite pleasure to him; it was

a renewal of life of which he himself partook. But afterwards, when he

had grown accustomed to it, and all the girl's suffering had passed

away, he ceased to rejoice as over some unhoped-for blessing. All that

was left to him was a sort of hebetation, a slackening of the nerves

now that the struggle was over, a confused notion that the hollowness

and mockery of everything was becoming manifest again.

One night when he had been sleeping soundly Pauline heard him awake

with a sigh of agony. By the feeble glimmer of the night-light she

caught a glimpse of his terror-stricken face, his eyes staring wildly

with horror, and his hands clasped together in an attitude of entreaty.

He stammered out some incoherent words: 'O God! O God!'

She leant towards him with hasty anxiety, and called: 'What is the

matter with you, Lazare? Are you in pain?'

The sound of her voice made him start. He had been seen, then. He sat

silent and vexed, and could only contrive to tell a clumsy fib.

'There's nothing the matter with me. It was you yourself who were

crying out just now.'

But in reality the horror of death had just come back to him in his

sleep--a horror without cause, born of blank nothingness--a horror

whose icy breath had awakened him with a great shudder. O God! he

thought, so he would have to die some day. And that thought took

possession of him, and choked him; while Pauline, who had laid her

head back again on her pillow, watched him with an air of motherly

compassion.

V

Every evening, in the dining-room, when Véronique had cleared the

table, Madame Chanteau and Louise chatted together; while Chanteau,

buried in his newspaper, gave brief replies to his wife's few

questions. During the fortnight when he had thought Pauline in danger,

Lazare had never joined the family at dinner; but he now dined

downstairs again, though, directly the meal was over, he returned to

his post at the invalid's bedside. He scarcely closed the door behind

him before Madame Chanteau began with her old complaints.

At first she affected loving anxiety.

'Poor boy!' she said, 'he is quite wearing himself out. It is really

foolish of him to go on endangering his health in this way. He has

scarcely had any sleep for the last three weeks. He is paler than ever

to-day.'

Then she would have a word or two of pity for Pauline. The poor dear

seemed to suffer so much that it was impossible to stay in her room

without a heartache. But she soon began to harp upon the manner in

which that illness upset the house. Everything remained in a state of

confusion; their meals were always cold, and there was no relying upon

anything. Then she broke off suddenly, and, turning to her husband,

asked him:

'Has Véronique found time to give you your marshmallow water?'

'Yes, yes,' he replied from behind his newspaper. Then she lowered her

voice and addressed herself to Louise.

'It is very peculiar, but that poor Pauline seems to have brought us

nothing but misfortune. And yet some people persist in looking upon her

as our good angel! I know the stories that are floating about. At Caen,

they say--don't they, Louise?--that we have grown quite rich through

her. Rich, indeed! I should just think so! You may speak to me quite

frankly, for I am above taking any notice of their slanderous gossip.'

'Well, indeed, they do talk about you, just as they talk about

everybody else,' the girl murmured. 'Only last month I was obliged

to snub a notary's wife, who dared to speak on the subject, without

knowing anything at all about it. You can't prevent people talking, you

know.'

After that, Madame Chanteau made no attempt to veil her real feelings.

There was no doubt, she said, that they were suffering from their own

generosity. Had they wanted anyone's assistance before Pauline came?

And where would she have been now, in what Paris slum, if they had not

consented to take her into their house? It was all very fine for people

to talk about her money, but that money had never been anything but a

source of trouble to them; indeed, it seemed to have brought ruin with

it. The facts spoke clearly enough for themselves. Her son would never

have launched out into those idiotic speculations in seaweed, nor have

wasted his time in trying to prevent the sea from sweeping Bonneville

away, if that unlucky Pauline had not turned his head. If she had

lost her money, well, it was her own fault. The poor young fellow had

wrecked both his health and his future. Madame Chanteau could hardly

find words strong enough with which to inveigh against those hundred

and fifty thousand francs of which her secrétaire still reeked. It was,

indeed, all the large sums which had been swallowed up, and the small

amounts which were still being daily abstracted and thus increasing

the deficit, that embittered her, as though therein lay the ferment

in which her honesty had rotted away. By this time putrefaction was

complete, and she hated Pauline for all the money she owed her.

'What is the good of talking to such an obstinate creature?' she

resumed bitterly. 'She is horribly miserly at heart, and, at the same

time, she is recklessness itself. She will toss twelve thousand francs

to the bottom of the sea for the Bonneville fishermen, who only laugh

at us, and feed all the filthy brats in the neighbourhood; while I

perfectly tremble, upon my word of honour I do, if I have to ask her

for only forty sous. What do you think of that? With all her pretence

of charity to others, she has got a heart of stone.'

During all the talk of this kind Véronique was often in and out of the

room, clearing away the dinner things or bringing in the tea, and she

loitered to listen to what was being said, and sometimes even ventured

on a remark.

'Mademoiselle Pauline got a heart of stone! Oh, Madame! how can you say

so?'

Madame Chanteau reduced her to silence by a stern look. Then, resting

her elbows on the table, she entered into a series of complicated

calculations, talking as to herself.

'I've nothing more to do with her money now, thank goodness, but I

should like to know how much of it there's left. Not more than seventy

thousand francs, I'll be bound. Just let us reckon it up a little.

Three thousand have gone already in that experimental stockade; then

there are, at least, two hundred francs going every month in charity,

and ninety francs for her board here. All that mounts up quickly. Will

you take a bet, Louise, that she'll ruin herself? You will see her

reduced to a pallet one of these days. And when she has quite ruined

herself, who will take her in?--how will she manage to live?'

At this Véronique could not restrain herself, but broke out: 'I'm sure

Madame could never think of turning her out of doors?'

'What do you mean? What are you speaking about?' her mistress demanded

angrily. 'There's no question of anyone being turned out of doors. I

never turned anybody out of doors. What I said was that nothing can be

more foolish, when one has had a fortune of one's own, to go frittering

it all away and becoming dependent upon other people. Go off to your

kitchen.'

The servant went off, grinding out muttered protests from between her

teeth. Then there came an interval of silence, while Louise poured out

the tea. The only sound in the room was the slight rustling of the

newspaper, which Chanteau read from end to end, not missing even the

advertisements. Now and then he spoke a word or two to the young girl.

'You might give me another piece of sugar, please. Have you had a

letter from your father yet?'

'No, indeed,' she answered with a smile. 'But if I am in the way I

can leave at any time, you know. You have quite sufficient trouble

with Pauline's illness. I would rather have gone away before, but you

insisted upon my staying.'

'You mustn't talk like that,' he interrupted. 'It is only too kind of

you to give us the pleasure of your society till poor Pauline can get

downstairs again.'

'I can go to Arromanches till my father comes, if I am in the way,' she

continued, as though she had not heard him, merely by way of teasing.

'My aunt Léonie has taken a chalet there, and there are plenty of

people there, and a good beach where one can bathe at any rate. But she

is very wearisome is my aunt Léonie.'

Chanteau laughed at the girl's playful, fondling ways. Though he dare

not confess it to his wife, he was entirely on the side of Pauline,

who nursed him so kindly and carefully. He buried himself in his

newspaper again; while Madame Chanteau, who had been immersed in deep

reflections, suddenly started up, as though awaking from a dream.

'There's one thing which I can't forgive her. She has completely taken

possession of my son. He scarcely stops at the table for a quarter of

an hour, and I can hardly get a single word with him.'

'That will soon be over,' said Louise. 'She must have someone with her.'

Madame Chanteau shook her head and tightened her lips, but the words

which she seemed trying to keep back broke out, apparently in spite of

herself.

'It's all very well to say that, but it's a little peculiar for a young

man to be always shut up with a sick girl. There! I've said what I mean

and haven't kept it back, and if it doesn't please others I can't help

it.'

Then, noticing Louise's embarrassed look, she added: 'It isn't healthy

to breathe the atmosphere of a sick-room. She may easily infect him

with her sore throat. Those girls who seem so vigorous have sometimes

all sorts of impurities in their blood. Well, I don't know why I

shouldn't say it, but I don't think she is quite sound and healthy.'

Louise then feebly defended her friend. She had always found her so

nice and kind; that was the only argument which she contrived to bring

forward--in reply to the accusation of a stony heart and ill-health. An

instinctive desire for tranquil peace and quietness induced her to try

to mitigate Madame Chanteau's rough ill-feeling, although every day she

listened to her trying to excel her bitterness of the day before. While

making some kind of protest against the harshness of Madame Chanteau's

language, Louise indeed flushed with secret pleasure at finding herself

preferred to Pauline, promoted to the position of favourite. She was

like Minouche in this respect, content to be caressing so long as her

own enjoyment was not interfered with.

Every evening the conversation, after flowing along the same channels,

ended invariably in the same way, Madame Chanteau slowly saying:

'No, Louisette, the girl that my son ought to marry----'

And from that starting-point she would launch out into a disquisition

upon the qualities of an ideal daughter-in-law, while her eyes all

the time remained fixed upon Louise, trying to make her understand

more than she was willing to actually say. It was the girl's own self

that was gradually being described. A young person who had been well

brought up and educated, who had acquired a knowledge of society, and

who was fit to play the part of a hostess, who was graceful rather than

beautiful, and, what was especially desirable, who was truly feminine

and lady-like; for a boy-like girl, a hoyden who made frankness a

pretence for being rough and rude, was, said she, her detestation. Then

there was the question of money--which was really the only one that

influenced her--and this she made a pretence of dismissing with a word,

saying that, though she made no account of a dowry, her son had great

schemes and aims for the future, and could not, of course, afford to

contract a marriage that would be likely to lead to ruin.

'I may tell you, my dear, that if Pauline had come here penniless, with

nothing but the chemise she wore, the marriage would probably have

taken place years ago. But you can't be surprised at my hesitation and

distrust, when I see money slipping through her hands like water. The

sixty thousand francs she still has left won't trouble her much longer,

I fancy. No! Lazare deserves a better fate than that, and I will never

consent to his marrying a mad creature who would stint the house in

food so that she might ruin herself with idiotic follies.'

'Ah, no! money's nothing,' said Louise, lowering her eyes; 'still one

needs some.'

Although Louise's dowry was not directly referred to, her two hundred

thousand francs seemed to be lying there upon the table, glistening

beneath the glow of the hanging lamp. It was because Madame Chanteau

felt and saw them there that she became thus excited, and swept aside

Pauline's paltry sixty thousand in her dream of winning for her son

that other girl whose big fortune was still intact. She had noticed

how Lazare had been drawn towards Louise before all this tiresome

business, which now kept him in seclusion upstairs. If the girl was

equally attracted towards him, why shouldn't they make a match of it?

Her husband would give his consent, and that the more readily when he

saw it was a case of mutual affection. Thus she did all she could to

fan Louise's love into life, spending the rest of the evening in making

such remarks as she thought likely to excite the girl's passion.

'My Lazare is so good! No one knows half how good he is. You yourself,

Louisette, have no notion how affectionate is his nature. Nobody will

pity the girl who gets him for a husband. She will be quite certain of

being passionately loved. And he is such a handsome vigorous fellow,

too! His skin is as white as a chicken's. My grandfather, the Chevalier

de la Vignière, had such a white skin that he used to wear his clothes

cut quite low like a woman's when he went to masked balls.'

Louise blushed and smiled, and was much amused with Madame Chanteau's

details. The mother's advocacy of her son, and the confidences which

she poured out to Louise with the object of inclining her to a union

with Lazare, might have kept her there all night if Chanteau had not

begun to feel very drowsy over his newspaper.

'Isn't it about time for us all to go to bed?' he asked with a yawn.

Then, as though he had been quite unconscious for some time of what

had been going on, and was taking up the thread of Madame Chanteau's

earlier conversation, he added:

'You are quite mistaken. She is a good girl, and I shall be very glad

when she is able to come downstairs again and eat her soup beside me.'

'We shall all be glad,' cried his wife, with considerable bitterness.

'We may speak and say what we think, without ceasing to be fond of

those of whom we talk.'

'The poor little dear!' exclaimed Louise, in her turn; 'I should be

very glad to bear half the pain for her, if such a thing were possible.

She is so amiable!'

Véronique, who was just bringing them their candles, once more put in

her word.

'You are quite right to be her friend, Mademoiselle Louise, for no

one, unless she had a paving-stone for a heart, could ever wish her

unkindly.'

'That will do,' said Madame Chanteau. 'We didn't ask for your opinion.

It would be very much better if you cleaned the candlesticks. This one

here is quite filthy.'

They all rose from their seats. Chanteau lost no time in escaping from

his wife's snappishness, and shut himself up in his room on the ground

floor. But when the two women reached the landing upstairs, where their

rooms adjoined each other, they did not at once go to bed. Madame

Chanteau almost always took Louise into her own room for a little

time and there resumed her remarks about Lazare, showing the girl one

and another portrait of him, and even exhibiting little memorials and

souvenirs, such as a tooth which had been extracted when he was quite

young, or a look of the pale hair of his infancy, or even some of his

old clothes; for instance, the bow he had worn at his first communion,

or his first pair of trousers.

'See!' she said, one night, 'these are some locks of his hair. I have a

number, cut at all stages of his life.'

Thus, when Louise got to bed she could not sleep for thinking of the

young man whom his mother was trying to force on her.

Up above, Pauline's convalescence was progressing gradually. Although

the patient was now out of danger, she still remained very feeble, worn

out and exhausted by feverish attacks which astonished the doctor.

As Lazare said, doctors were always being astonished. He himself was

growing more irritable every hour. The sudden lassitude which had

fallen upon him when the crisis was over seemed to be turning into

a kind of uneasy restlessness. Now that he was no longer wrestling

against death, he began to feel distressed by the close atmosphere of

the apartment and the spoonfuls of physic which had to be administered

at regular hours, and all the other little duties of a sick-room, which

he had so enthusiastically taken upon himself at first. Pauline was

able to do without him now, and he sank back into the boredom of an

aimless empty existence--a boredom which kept him fidgeting from chair

to chair, with his hands hanging listlessly by his side, or wandering

about the room, staring hopelessly at the walls, or deep in gloomy

abstraction in front of the window, looking out, but seeing nothing.

'Lazare,' Pauline said to him one day, 'you must go out. Véronique will

be quite able to do everything.'

But he hotly refused. 'Couldn't she bear his presence any longer,' he

asked, 'that she wanted to send him away? It would be very nice of him,

wouldn't it, if he were to desert her like that before she was quite

strong again?'

But he grew calm as she gently explained to him:

'You wouldn't be deserting me by just going out to get a little fresh

air. Go out in the afternoon. We should be in a pretty way if you were

to fall ill too.'

Then, however, she unfortunately added:

'I have seen you yawning all the morning.'

'You've seen me yawning!' he cried. 'Say at once that I have no heart!

This is a nice way to thank me!'

The next morning Pauline was more diplomatic. She pretended that

she was very anxious that the construction of the stockades should

be proceeded with; the high winter tides were coming on, and the

experimental works would be swept away if the system of defence was not

completed. But Lazare no longer glowed with his early enthusiasm; he

was dissatisfied with the resistance of the timbers as he had arranged

them, and fresh study would be necessary. Then, too, the estimate would

be exceeded, and the authorities had not yet voted a single sou. For

two days Pauline tried to fan his inventive _amour-propre_ into fresh

life. She asked him if he was going to let himself be beaten by the

sea, with all the neighbourhood looking on and smiling; as for the

money, it would certainly be paid back, if she advanced it, as they had

settled she should. By degrees Lazare then seemed to work himself up to

his old pitch of enthusiasm. He made fresh designs and again called in

the carpenter from Arromanches, and had long consultations with him in

his own room, the door of which he left open so that he might be ready

to go to Pauline at the first summons.

'Now,' said he one morning as he kissed the girl, 'the sea won't be

able to break anything. I am quite sure we shall be successful. As soon

as you are able to walk, you must go and see how the works are getting

on.'

Louise had just come up into the room to inquire after Pauline's

health, and as she, too, kissed her, the patient whispered to her:

'Take him away with you.'

Lazare at first refused to go. He was expecting the doctor, he said.

But Louise laughed and told him that she was sure he was much too

gallant to let her go alone to the Gonins, where she was going to

choose some lobsters to send to Caen. Besides, he could give a look at

the works on the way.

'Yes, do go,' said Pauline. 'It will please me if you do. Take his arm,

Louise. There, now, don't let him get away again.'

She grew quite merry as the two others jokingly pushed each other

about; but when they had left the room she became very thoughtful,

and leaned over the edge of her bed to listen to their laughter and

footsteps dying away down the stairs.

A quarter of an hour later Véronique came in with the doctor. By-and-by

she installed herself at Pauline's bedside, but without abandoning

her saucepans, for she kept perpetually running to and fro between

the kitchen and the bedroom, spending an hour or so there, as she was

able, in the intervals of her work. She did not, however, take over all

the duties of nurse at once. Lazare came back in the evening after

going out with Louise, but he set off again the next morning; and each

succeeding day, carried away as he was, absorbed more and more in

outdoor life, his visits to Pauline grew shorter and shorter, till he

soon stayed only long enough to inquire after her. Pauline, too, always

told him to run off, if he merely spoke of sitting down; and when he

and Louise returned together she made them tell her all about their

walk, and grew quite bright amidst their animation and the touch of the

fresh breezes which still seemed to cling to their hair. They seemed

such good friends, and nothing else, that all her old suspicions of

them had vanished. And when she saw Véronique coming towards her, with

her draught in her hand, she cried out to her gaily:

'Oh! be off! You worry me!'

Sometimes she called Lazare to her to tell him to look after Louise, as

though she had been a child.

'See that she doesn't get bored. She wants amusing. Take her for a good

long walk; I shall get on very well without you for the rest of the

day.'

When she was left alone, her eyes seemed to be following them from a

distance. She spent her time in reading, waiting till she should be

strong again, for she was still so weak that it quite exhausted her to

sit up for two or three hours in an easy-chair. She would often let

her book slip on to her lap, while her thoughts dreamily wandered off

after her cousin and her friend. She wondered whether they were walking

along the beach, and had got to the caves, where it was so pleasant

on the sands amidst the fresh breezes and rising tide. In those long

reveries she fancied that the feeling of sorrow which depressed her

came merely from the fact that she was unable to be with them. She

soon grew weary of reading. The novels which lay about the house,

love-stories abounding in romantic falsity and treason, had always

offended her sense of honour, for she felt how impossible it would be,

after once giving her heart, to withdraw it again. Was it true, then,

that people's hearts could lie so, and that, after having once loved,

they could ever cease to love? She threw the books from her in disgust;

and with her wandering gaze saw, in imagination, her cousin bringing

her friend home, he supporting her weary steps, as they came along side

by side, whispering and laughing.

'Here is your draught, Mademoiselle,' suddenly said Véronique, whose

deep voice, coming from behind, aroused Pauline from her reverie with a

start.

By the end of the first week Lazare never came to her room without

first knocking. One morning as he opened the door he caught sight of

her, combing her hair as she sat up in bed, with her arms bare.

'Oh! I beg your pardon!' he cried, stepping back.

'What's the matter?' said she. 'Are you frightened of me?' Then he took

courage, but he was afraid lest he should embarrass her, and turned his

head aside until she had finished fastening up her hair.

A fortnight before, when he had thought that she was dying, he had

lifted her in his arms as though she had been a child, without

even noticing her nakedness. But now the very disorder of the room

disquieted him. And the girl herself, catching his feeling of

uneasiness, soon refrained from asking of him any of the little

services that he had lately been accustomed to render her.

'Shut the door, Véronique!' she cried one morning, as she heard the

young man's step on the landing. 'Put all those things out of sight and

give me that fichu.'

She was gradually growing stronger, and her great pleasure, when she

was able to stand up and lean against the window, was to watch the

progress that was being made with the defensive works. She could

distinctly hear the blows of the hammers, and see the gang of seven or

eight men, who bustled about like big ants over the yellowish shingle

on the beach. Between the tides they worked away energetically, but

they were obliged to retire before the rising water. It was with

special interest, too, that Pauline's eyes followed Lazare's white

jacket and Louise's pink gown, both of which glittered conspicuously

in the sun. She followed them constantly with her gaze, and could have

told their every action, almost their every gesture, throughout the

day. Now that the operations were being pushed so vigorously forward

they could no longer wander off together, or ramble to the caves inside

the cliffs; and thus Pauline constantly had them within half a mile of

her, always plainly visible beneath the wide expanse of sky, though

their stature was reduced by distance to that of dolls. Quite unknown

to herself, this jealous pleasure of accompanying them in fancy did

much to cheer her convalescence and recruit her strength.

'It amuses you, eh, to watch the workmen?' Véronique used to repeat

every day as she dusted the room. 'Well, it's much better for you than

reading. Whenever I try to read I get a headache. And, besides, when

one wants to get back strength, one must go and open one's mouth in the

sunshine like the turkeys do, and drink in great mouthfuls of it.'

Véronique was not naturally of a talkative nature; she was even

considered a little morose and taciturn; but with Pauline she chatted

freely from a friendly impulse, believing that she did the girl good.

'It's a funny piece of business all the same! But it seems to please

Monsieur Lazare. Though, indeed, he does not appear to be quite so full

of it just now as he was. But he is so proud and obstinate that he will

go on persisting in a thing, even if he is really sick to death of it.

And if he just leaves those drunken fellows for a minute, they drive

the nails in all crooked.'

After she had swept the floor under the bed she added:

'And as for the duchess--'

Pauline, who was scarcely listening to the woman, caught this word with

surprise.

'The duchess? Whom are you talking of?'

'Mademoiselle Louise, of course! Wouldn't anyone say that she had

sprung straight from Jupiter's thigh? If you were to go and look in her

room and see all her little pots and pomades and scents----Why, as soon

as ever you open the door, it all catches you at the throat, the place

smells so! But she can't match you in good looks, for all that!'

'Oh, nonsense! I'm a mere country girl,' Pauline said with a smile;

'Louise is very graceful and refined.'

'Well, she may be all that; but she hasn't got a pretty face, all the

same. I have had a good look at her when she has been washing herself;

and I know that, if I were a man, I shouldn't be long in making up my

mind between you.'

Carried off by her feeling of enthusiastic conviction, she came and

leaned against the window, close to Pauline.

'Just glance at her there on the beach! Doesn't she look a mere shrimp?

She is certainly a long way off, and one can't expect her to appear

as big as a church, but she ought to show a figure of some sort! Ah!

there's Monsieur Lazare lifting her up, so that she mayn't wet her

pretty little shoes. She can't weigh very much in his arms, that's

certain! But there are some men who seem to prefer bones!'

Véronique checked herself suddenly, as she felt Pauline quivering by

her side. She was ever harping on this subject, as if she itched to

talk of it. All that she heard and all that she saw--the conversations

in the evening when Pauline was calumniated, the furtive smiles of

Lazare and Louise, and the utter ingratitude of the whole family,

which was rapidly growing into treason--stuck in her throat and made

her choke. If she had gone up to the sick girl's room at the times

when her honest heart glowed with a sense of some fresh injustice, she

could not have restrained herself from revealing everything to Pauline,

but her fear of making her ill kept her stamping about her kitchen,

knocking her pots and pans about, and swearing that she could not go

on much longer in that way, but would soon be driven into telling them

all very roundly what she thought about them. However, when she got

upstairs into Pauline's room, and a word that might vex or disturb the

girl escaped her lips, she tried to recall it or explain it away with a

touching awkwardness.