Whilst her brother and Saccard talked, Madame Caroline listened in silence, resolved not to intervene. She was full of remorse, for she accused herself of complicity, since it was she who, after promising to watch, had let everything go on. Instead of contenting herself with simply selling her shares in order to combat the rise, ought she not to have taken some other course--warned people, acted energetically? Worshipping her brother as she did, her heart bled at seeing him compromised in this fashion, with all his great enterprises shaken, the whole work of his life again in question; and she suffered the more since she did not feel herself free to judge Saccard; for had she not loved him, was she not his, linked to him by that secret bond, the shame of which she now felt more than ever? Placed between these two men, a combat raged within her and rent her heart. On the evening of the catastrophe, in a fine outburst of frankness, she had heaped her wrath upon Saccard, emptying her heart of all the reproaches and fears which had so long been swelling it. However, on seeing him smile, still tenacious, still unconquered despite everything, she had reflected that, after her own weakness with him, she had no right to finish him off, to strike him now that he was down. She thought, too, of the strength which he would need to set himself erect again, and so, taking refuge in silence, her demeanour alone giving expression to her blame, she resolved that she would henceforward be nothing but a witness.