"It is useless to go on. I shall give it up only with my life. Just now, when I was speaking of dying, it was with her. She would follow me, no matter where, even to death." "I understand. You are all in all to her, but the contrary is not true. How you will both suffer, both of you!" Albert took his friend's arm. "Listen, I am not a coward," he said. "The choice of my life is not entirely in my own hands. Circumstances have brought it about that I am everything to Anne. I shall not give her up--no matter what happens." "You prefer to sacrifice your children?" "They have their mother." "And their mother?" No answer following the question, Philippe added: "Shall you see her again before your departure?" "No, what should I say to her? That she should break our legal ties, that she should try to remake her own happiness--she is so young, so lovely, so fascinating--and that I can never be anything to her again?" "And that you are not happy?" "What matter." And those words fell like a stone into a dry well. All afternoon Elizabeth waited at home for the uncertain event which would bring her husband to her. She could not believe that he would go away without seeing her again. Had she not helped his mother, shared his sorrow with him even that morning? How could he be so cruel as to go away in this manner? Night came, and she still held the hope, which was sustaining her, as she sat, ardent and motionless, in the same armchair, her ear strained to catch the slightest sound, her eyes vainly fixed on the door. She knew that he must take the 10:40 express. She knew where Anne de Sézery was. Finally she went into her children's room, saw that they were asleep, left them in their nurse's charge, and hastily putting on her hat and cloak, she hurried toward the station. "If I went to look for him?" Mme. Derize had said one day. Without pride, humiliated, conquered, here she was hastening to offer to the ungrateful faithless one, the heart which he had broken. She did not find him in the entrance hall. Not daring to cross the station to reach the platform, trembling with the emotion of her sudden impulse, she went out into the darkness and watched for the arrival of the carriages. At last she saw Albert and Philippe get out and she drew back, so as not to be seen. By the light of the lantern she distinguished Albert's set expression, as he paid the coachman. Ashamed of her weakness as soon as they had passed, she fled. An individual, very smartly dressed--(one of those rich glove merchants of Grenoble who make their large fortunes in Paris or Lyons and who, as a result, have acquired at a high price the right of treating women with familiarity)--after noticing her uneasy manner and her figure, followed her and dared to speak to her in the Rue Lesdiguières,--which is not well illuminated. He did not belong to the society she moved in and did not know her. "Well, Madame, one must be guided by reason. The king is dead--long live the king!"