This tendency had developed, during the last few years, from the sight of so much misery, from her connection with those two deaths, Odette's and Ruth's. She had been mysteriously shaken by them. A weakness. She called it unhealthy and perhaps it was so. One could not live if one had to pause over the sufferings of the world. All happiness is nourished on the unhappiness of someone else. Life devours life, as larvæ devour the living prey in which they are laid. And everyone drinks the blood of all. . . . Annette had once drunk it without thinking of it, and this blood brought warmth and joy to her body. While she was young she had never thought of the victims. From the moment when she had said to herself, as she thought of them, "I must be hard," she had begun to weaken. She felt this; she could only be hard intermittently now. She was growing old. Ten years earlier she would not have had a moment's hesitation because of the harm she was doing Noémi. "My happiness is my right. Woe to anyone who touches it! . . ." She would have had no need to seek for pretexts. Now, in order to snatch from life her share of happiness, she had to find other reasons than her happiness. She was no longer sufficient unto herself. She had found the strength to brush aside, without scruple, the other less fortunate competitors in the hunt for bread. This bread was her son's; she was upheld by the animal instinct that makes a creature bristle to defend its young and feed them on the flesh of its fellow-animals. But the other animal instinct, the love of self--taking and keeping for oneself--was dying down and only asserted itself now by fits and starts. Maternity, by usurping the place of this other instinct, had partially destroyed it. In the present crisis her son was no help to her. Far from it! He was one anxiety and remorse the more. Annette could not lie to herself, her passion took no account of her son. She felt guilty towards him, and she had taken pains to hide everything from him. She knew the child. In the past she had observed the jealousy that led him to drive his claws into those whom she loved. She did not blame him for this. She was glad that he wanted to be the only one to love her. . . . But to-day she was defending her treasure--against whom? Against her treasure! Passion against passion. She did not wish to sacrifice either of the two. And as both of them were jealous, obstinate, domineering, she had to hide from each the secret of the other. Had she succeeded? Marc detested the "other fellow." He knew nothing--of that she was sure--but although he did not know, had not his instinct told him? She was ashamed to conceal herself and she was even more ashamed that he might suspect. . . . No, he suspected nothing; it was for other reasons that he hated Philippe. . . .