Olivier had written this in the most cruel minute of his insomnia. His suffering found relief in the insolent use of the Christian name, in the insulting remembrance of an ineffaceable intimacy. Then he tore up the sheet of paper into minute fragments which betrayed the rage consuming him. After she had put together and deciphered this fatal phrase Berthe saw nothing else. All her presentiments were well founded: Baroness Ely de Carlsberg, of whom Corancez had spoken to Hautefeuille in the train, was her husband's former mistress! He had only wanted to come to Cannes because she was there, so as to see her again! The letter in his hand a few minutes before had been for her! He had gone with it to her villa! Face to face with this indisputable and overwhelming certainty, the young woman was seized with a convulsive trembling that increased as the hour for luncheon drew near.--It burst all bounds when, toward noon, she received a card from Olivier upon which he had scribbled in pencil--always the same handwriting!--that a friend whom he had met had insisted upon keeping him for luncheon, and he begged her not to wait for him! "She has won him back from me! He is with her!" When she had realized this thought, weighted with all the horrible pain given by evidence that pierces to the heart, like some glittering, icy cold knife, she felt that she could not support this physical suffering. With the automatic action that comes upon such occasions she put on her hat and veil and gloves. Then when she was dressed and ready for going out a final gleam of reason showed her the folly of the project she had conceived. She had thought of going to her rival's house, of surprising Olivier, and of finishing with it all forever! To finish with it all! She looked at herself in the mirror, her teeth chattering, her face lividly pale, all her body convulsively trembling. She realized that such a step in her present state with such a woman would be absurd. But suppose some one else took this step? Suppose some one else went to Olivier and said, "Your wife knows all. She is dying. Come." The idea of him whom she believed to be her husband's confidant had no sooner occurred to the mind of the unhappy woman when she rang for her chambermaid with the same automatic nervousness. "Beg Monsieur Hautefeuille to come here, if he is in his room," she said, she who had never had a single conversation in her life _tête-à-tête_ with the young man.