This was the return of the oceanic flood. It announced itself by a roaring of the waves, a nocturnal resurgence. For a time maternity had satisfied the passionate elements of her nature. The material fatigue of a working life had set up a dam against them. But, gathering in the shadow, they beat against the rock. The soul, which as it grows climbs up the spiral of life, found itself returning to a state bordering on that from which it had passed, four or five years before, between the burning summer of the hotel in the Grisons and the spring of love with Roger Brissot. Bordering on it, but not the same. One returns on the spiral above the past; one does not descend to it again. Annette's nature had ripened. There was no longer in her agitation any of the blind ingenuousness of the young girl. She was a woman; her desires were keen and definite. She knew whither they led. And if she did not wish to know, it was precisely because she did know. Her will had matured no less than her flesh. Everything about her had become richer, and everything had assumed an accent of passion. The reappearance of these familiar demons, these dreaded demons, was like a midday when a storm is gathering. A heavy silence, a silence big with the tempest to come. It followed the careless joys and the careless sorrows of the young morning. The shadows slipped unceasingly over Annette's face. She had become tense. When she was in company or off her guard, when she was not distracted by the child's presence, she would fall into a dumb silence, with a line between her brows. When she became aware of this, she would slip noiselessly away. Any one who had been disturbed about her would have found her in her room, setting it in order, making her bed, turning the mattress, polishing the furniture or the floor, using more movements than were necessary, but not succeeding in stifling the spirit that resounded within her. She would stop in the midst of something she was doing, upright on a chair, a bit of chiffon in her hand, or leaning on the window-sill. Then she would forget everything, not only the past but the present as well, the dead and the living, even her child. She saw without seeing, she heard without hearing, she thought without thinking. A flame that burned in empty space. A sail in the wind of the open sea. She felt the great breath that passed through her limbs, and the ship vibrated with all its masts. And then from the boundless void emerged the face of the things that surrounded her. From the court of the house over which Annette was leaning mounted the familiar sounds; she recognized the voice of the child talking and singing. But her reverie was not interrupted; it took another course. It was the song of a bird on a summer afternoon. O sunny heart, what an amount of life you still have to give! Take the world into your open arms! Too much plunder! . . . Her consciousness relaxed its grip; she fell back into the incandescent gulf where there was no