Her husband came in at seven o'clock. He had found nothing. He had been to the Prefecture of the Police, to the papers offering a reward, to all small cab companies, anywhere, in short, where he could have the shadow of hope of recovery. She waited all day in the same state of fear in the face of this frightful disaster. Loisel returned in the evening pallid and haggard. No news as yet. "You must write to your friend that you have broken the clasp of the necklace and are having it repaired. That will give us time to look around." * * * * * At the end of the week they had lost all hope, and Loisel, to whom it seemed this care and trouble had added five years to his age, said: "We must try and replace the jewels." The following day they went to the jeweler whose name was stamped inside the case. He consulted his books: "I did not sell that necklace, madame, I only furnished the case." Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, racking their memories to find the same, both of them sick with grief and agony. At last, in a small shop in the Palais Royal, they found one which seemed to them like the one they had lost. With beating hearts they asked the price. Forty thousand francs; but they could have it for 36,000 francs. They asked the jeweler not to dispose of it for three days, and he also promised to take it back at 34,000 francs if the first one was found before the end of February. Loisel had inherited 18,000 francs from his father. He borrowed the rest. He borrowed a thousand francs from one, five hundred from another, five louis here, five louis there--he gave notes, made ruinous engagements, had recourse to the usurers, ran the whole gamut of money-lenders. He compromised his whole existence risking his signature, without knowing that it would be honored, terrified by the agony of the future, by the black misery which enveloped him, by the prospect of all the physical privations and moral tortures. He went for the new necklace and deposited on the counter his 36,000 francs. When Madame Loisel returned the necklace to Madame Forestier, she coldly said: "You should have returned it sooner, as I might have needed it." She did not open the case, the one thing Madame Loisel had dreaded. What if she had discovered the change--what would she have thought? Would she not be taken for a thief? * * * * * From that time on Madame Loisel knew what life meant to the very poor in all its phases. She took her part heroically. This frightful debt must be paid. Her share of privations was bravely borne. They discharged their one domestic, changed their location, and rented smaller apartments near the roof.