“Don’t you think it’s poisoning Douviers’ life not to know whom to suspect?” “Perhaps you are right. But you must say that to Laura. I couldn’t tell him without betraying her.... Besides I don’t even know where he is.” “Vincent?... Passavant must know.” A ring at the door interrupted them. Madame Molinier had come to enquire for her son. Edouard joined her in the studio. XI EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: PAULINE VISIT from Pauline. I was a little puzzled how to let her know, and yet I could not keep her in ignorance of her son’s illness. I thought it useless to say anything about the incomprehensible attempt at suicide and spoke simply of a violent liver attack, which, as a matter of fact, remains the clearest result of the proceedings. “I am reassured already by knowing Olivier is with you,” said Pauline. “I shouldn’t nurse him better myself, for I feel that you love him as much as I do.” As she said these last words, she looked at me with an odd insistence. Did I imagine the meaning she seemed to put in her look? I was feeling what one is accustomed to call “a bad conscience” as regards Pauline, and was only able to stammer out something incoherent. I must also say that, sur-saturated as I have been with emotion for the last two days, I had entirely lost command of myself; my confusion must have been very apparent, for she added: “Your blush is eloquent!... My poor dear friend, don’t expect reproaches from me. I should reproach you if you didn’t love him.... Can I see him?” I took her in to Olivier. Bernard had left the room as he heard us coming. “How beautiful he is!” she murmured, bending over the bed. Then, turning towards me: “You will kiss him from me. I am afraid of waking him.” Pauline is decidedly an extraordinary woman. And to-day is not the first time that I have begun to think so. But I could not have hoped that she would push comprehension so far. And yet it seemed to me that behind the cordiality of her words and the pleasantness she put into her voice, I could distinguish a touch of constraint (perhaps because of the effort I myself made to hide my embarrassment); and I remembered a sentence of our last conversation--a sentence which seemed to me full of wisdom even then, when I was not interested in finding it so: “I prefer granting with a good grace what I know I shan’t be able to prevent.” Evidently Pauline was striving after good grace; and, as if in response to my secret thoughts, she went on again, as soon as we were back in the studio: