When the reality of this came before her, she quickly flung herself back. All that she had believed genuine was deceptive, all that she had believed full was empty; but she would not acknowledge this to herself. She treated as chimeras those almost indefinable tokens which enable a tormented soul to penetrate another to its remotest depths. She loved Armand, and she wished to love him. Was not her entire life staked now on this card? It was only four months since she had become his mistress. What! four such short months! It is a horrible thing that in so short a time one can pass, without any visible shame, from the sublimest hope--that of making amends for all the injustice in a man's destiny--to the bitterest conviction of impotence. Scarcely four months, and he was not happy, nor was she. Would she never again ascend the incline down which she felt herself falling? She caught glimpses of the future with unconquerable anguish. Ah, if it were true that he could not love, what would become of her. She now existed only through him; she could not exist otherwise. And he seemed to have no suspicion of the crisis of sorrow through which she was passing. It was her own fault; why did she not show him all her soul? That again she was unable to do. Would she ever be able? And when her grief caused her excessive suffering she murmured: "Strange being, why have I loved you? And nevertheless I cannot regret that I have done so." CHAPTER V Alfred Chazel had been quite aware that a mysterious drama was being played in his household. He had been sensible of it, dimly at first. It has not been sufficiently remarked how much the peculiar nature of imagination, when developed by the habits of the mind, prevails over sensibility itself, and modifies it. Alfred had an altogether mathematical intellect, very skilful in abstract reasonings, very unskilful in the perception of the real. He was as little acquainted with his wife's character after several years of married life as he had been on the day when he fell in love with her during a visit to Monsieur de Vaivre. But it was not only Helen's soul, with its depths, and complexities, and singularities, that was unknown to him; it was her whole life. Just as he had accepted the principles of conduct of the middle class to which he belonged, so had he accepted its ideas; and to the credit of the French provincial middle class it must be said that their morals are, relatively speaking, very pure. The men have, perhaps, in their youth low pleasures. But the married women who cause themselves to be talked about are immediately pointed at in such a way that the number of them is very small.