The blow which was finishing Geneviève was Colomban's sudden disappearance. At first, chaffed by Clara, he had stopped out several nights; then, yielding to the mad desires of a quiet, chaste fellow, he had become her obedient slave, and had not returned one Monday, but had simply sent a farewell letter to Baudu, written in the studied terms of a man about to commit suicide. Perhaps, at the bottom of this passion, there was also the crafty calculation of a fellow delighted at escaping a disastrous marriage. The draper's business was in as bad a way as his betrothed; the moment was propitious to break with them through any stupidity. And every one cited him as an unfortunate victim of love. When Denise arrived at The Old Elbeuf, Madame Baudu was there alone, sitting motionless behind the pay-desk, with her small white face, eaten up by anæmia, silent and quiet in the cold, deserted shop. There were no assistants now. The servant dusted the shelves, and it was even a question of replacing her by a charwoman. A dreary cold fell from the ceiling, hours passed away without a customer coming to disturb this silence, and the goods, no longer touched, became mustier and mustier every day. “What's the matter?” asked Denise, anxiously. “Is Geneviève in danger?” Madame Baudu did not reply at first. Her eyes filled with tears. Then she stammered: “I don't know; they don't tell me anything. Ah, it's all over, it's all over.” And she cast a sombre glance around the dark old shop, as if she felt her daughter and the shop disappearing together. The seventy thousand francs, produce of the sale of their Rambouillet property, had melted away in less than two years in this gulf of competition. In order to struggle against The Ladies' Paradise, which now kept men's cloths and materials for hunting and livery suits, the draper had made considerable sacrifices. At last he had been definitely crushed by the swanskin cloth and flannels sold by his rival, an assortment that had not its equal in the market. Little by little his debts had increased, and, as a last resource, he had resolved to mortgage the old building in the Rue de la Michodière, where Finet, their ancestor, had founded the business; and it was now only a question of days, the crumbling away had commenced, the very ceilings seemed to be falling down and turning into dust, like an old worm-eaten structure carried away by the wind. “Your uncle is upstairs,” resumed Madame Baudu in her broken voice. “We stay with her two hours each. Some one must look out here; oh! but only as a precaution, for to tell the truths----” Her gesture finished the phrase. They would have put the shutters up had it not been for their old commercial pride, which still propped them up in the presence of the neighbourhood. “Well, I'll go up, aunt,” said Denise, whose heart was bleeding, amidst this resigned despair that even the pieces of cloth themselves exhaled.