Blanche made her last dive without the accident that Tate had regarded as indispensable to dramatic effect. Indeed, since knowing that she was to give it up, she seemed to have lost much of her terror of the plunge; she thought of it now chiefly with regret. That night, as she rode home with Jules and Madeleine, she seemed depressed; Jules, too, was even more sullen than he had been for the past two weeks. When they had entered the lodgings and were eating their midnight meal, she said:-- "If to-morrow is pleasant we might take Jeanne for a drive in the country. The air would do her good." "I can't go," he replied indifferently. "I have something else to do. Besides, it would cost too much. We shall have to be economical now that you're going to be on half-salary." The next morning Jules left the hotel at eleven o'clock, saying that he shouldn't be back for luncheon. He did not explain where he was going, and Blanche did not question him. She busied herself with Jeanne, and this distracted her till Jeanne fell sound asleep. Then she became a prey to her old melancholy, and for an hour she walked up and down the room, to the bewilderment of Madeleine, who could not understand what the matter was. "Is Madame suffering with the pain in her back?" Madeleine asked at last. No, Madame was not suffering. She had not been troubled by the pain for several days; she hoped it would leave her for good now that she had stopped taking the plunge. "Ah, God be praised that you do that no longer!" Madeleine cried, lifting her withered hands to heaven and rolling her eyes. "It was too terrible. Since that first night in Paris, when I went with you and Monsieur Jules, I never dared to look. It was _affreux_!" "But Jules loved it," said Blanche, throwing herself into a chair beside the old woman. Ah, yes, Madeleine acknowledged. He used to rave about it in the little flat in the _rue de Lisbonne_. Once Madeleine heard him talking in his sleep about the circus and the wonderful dive; he always slept with his door wide-open, and she often heard him talking away like one wide-awake. He had told her that it was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen, and no other woman in the world would have dared to do it. Madeleine was always delighted to have a chance to talk about Jules, and she babbled on, never suspecting that her words were making Blanche suffer. "Do you think," Blanche said at last, "do you think he would have loved me if I hadn't done that--if I hadn't done that plunge, I mean--in the Circus?" Madeleine glanced at her quickly; she was unable to grasp the significance of the question. "But he did see you in the Circus," she replied. "If he hadn't seen you there, _chérie_, he wouldn't have seen you at all."