She entered the room, shivering all over, and, throwing aside her wrap, went close to the stove where the fire was almost extinct. She began to talk at once, to pour out the wrath that had been stifling her for an hour, and while she was describing the scene in the factory, lowering her voice because of Madame Delobelle, who was asleep close by, the magnificence of her costume in that poor, bare, fifth floor, the dazzling whiteness of her disordered finery amid the heaps of coarse hats and the wisps of straw strewn about the room, all combined to produce the effect of a veritable drama, of one of those terrible upheavals of life when rank, feelings, fortunes are suddenly jumbled together. "Oh! I never shall return home. It is all over. Free--I am free!" "But who could have betrayed you to your husband?" asked the actor. "It was Frantz! I am sure it was Frantz. He wouldn't have believed it from anybody else. Only last evening a letter came from Egypt. Oh! how he treated me before that woman! To force me to kneel! But I'll be revenged. Luckily I took something to revenge myself with before I came away." And the smile of former days played about the corners of her pale lips. The old strolling player listened to it all with deep interest. Notwithstanding his compassion for that poor devil of a Risler, and for Sidonie herself, for that matter, who seemed to him, in theatrical parlance, "a beautiful culprit," he could not help viewing the affair from a purely scenic standpoint, and finally cried out, carried away by his hobby: "What a first-class situation for a fifth act!" She did not bear him. Absorbed by some evil thought, which made her smile in anticipation, she stretched out to the fire her dainty shoes, saturated with snow, and her openwork stockings. "Well, what do you propose to do now?" Delobelle asked after a pause. "Stay here till daylight and get a little rest. Then I will see." "I have no bed to offer you, my poor girl. Mamma Delobelle has gone to bed." "Don't you worry about me, my dear Delobelle. I'll sleep in that armchair. I won't be in your way, I tell you!" The actor heaved a sigh. "Ah! yes, that armchair. It was our poor Zizi's. She sat up many a night in it, when work was pressing. Ah, me! those who leave this world are much the happiest." He had always at hand such selfish, comforting maxims. He had no sooner uttered that one than he discovered with dismay that his soup would soon be stone-cold. Sidonie noticed his movement. "Why, you were just eating your supper, weren't you? Pray go on." "'Dame'! yes, what would you have? It's part of the trade, of the hard existence we fellows have. For you see, my girl, I stand firm. I haven't given up. I never will give up." What still remained of Desiree's soul in that wretched household in which she had lived twenty years must have shuddered at that terrible declaration. He never would give up!