Matters now took a different aspect. Thérèse, driven into a corner by fright, not knowing which way to turn for a consoling thought, began to weep aloud over the drowned man, in the presence of Laurent.

She abruptly became depressed, her overstrained nerves relaxed, her unfeeling and violent nature softened. She had already felt compassionate in the early days of her second marriage, and this feeling now returned, as a necessary and fatal reaction.

When the young woman had struggled with all her nervous energy against the spectre of Camille, when she had lived in sullen irritation for several months up in