Taking her in his arms, he kissed her eyes. After this indiscreet farewell embrace they both felt faint. How many couples have been bound together for ever by as few moments of weakness! But a door opening suddenly saved them, and they went back to their box. “I have wasted my whole life,” said Isabelle, while the attendant came up, key in hand. All the rest of the evening, with a strange oblivion of her powers, she felt wretched. She hated her clothes and her jewels, and exalted the magnificent poverty of true love above them all. For the rest of the evening, Jean, for all his victory, felt weaker and more humiliated than if he had lost. Yet he was enchanted at the sight of this beauty that he would never possess. His desire still smouldered ere it died away for ever. Before resolutely treading the narrow path of his destiny, he turned again to look at pleasure, not without a touch of sadness. At the exit, he helped Isabelle to put on the white silk cloak which covered the brilliant bareness of her neck and shoulders. Not till then was he able to rejoice that he had remained his own master and turn his thoughts freely to the pure, proud maiden who claimed the allegiance of his heart, at once so strong and so weak. Madame de Marthenay had scarcely said a word to Jean Berlier. He thought she was taken up with her husband, who according to public report was losing heavily at the Club and at the Villa des Fleurs and besides was making himself conspicuous with one of those many startling _demi-mondaines_ who infest Aix-les-Bains. She endured her sad life uncomplainingly, her submissive soul resigned beforehand to the worst. What did her fortune and the unfaithfulness of an unworthy husband matter to her? She had no hopes of any joy to come. Her over-refined and sensitive nature could not console itself with worldly pleasures for her deserted home and the emptiness of her heart. Her little girl alone kept her from despair. On her she lavished an excessive affection, heedless of the ills which she thereby laid up for her in the future. But that evening the sight of Jean had brought back to her with a bitter pang the scene in the wood at La Chênaie, when she had not had the strength to grasp her happiness, though it would have cost her but a slight effort and a promise that she would wait patiently. She wanted to question the young man about Marcel Guibert’s last days. The questions never passed her lips. Would she not betray her duty if she asked them? By the scruples of her conscience she heaped a new burden on her widowed heart. Thus she never knew that Marcel was carrying, when he died, the picture of a child with candid eyes, who was the cause of his proud scorn of death. CHAPTER VII PAULE’S SECRET