On the grand principle that we hate persons whom we have injured almost as much as those from whom we have received benefits, the sight of melancholy Gabrielle began to tell upon the nerves of Clovis. She was guilty of the great crime of boring him and of pinching conscience, and was unfortunate enough not to show advantageously by the side of the new foil. A moist statue of Endurance established at one's breakfast-table is an overpoweringly cumbersome piece of furniture, however immaculate its contours. Poor Gabrielle was no actress. If her heart was bursting, she had not the art to grin, and smirk, and caper to conceal the unpleasant fact. If her dimmed eyes were surrounded by _bistre_ circles like a rainy moon, if her lip quivered and her cheek was wan, she could not help it, for the modicum of courage she possessed was oozing, and she cared not if she lived or died. Her heart was slowly withering. When looking on the man upon whom she had bestowed her love, for better or worse for life, his image was blurred by distance. She saw him across a wide gulf that was ever widening. Our unlucky heroine's mind, as we have learned, was not well stocked. The sometimes skittish Brunelle's square head was so stocked with lore that doubtless in moments of woe she could unpigeonhole an array of valuable statistics and build with them a bulwark against trouble. Gabrielle was incapable of any such proceeding. She loved her husband with the loyalty of the simple woman who loves once. She worshipped the prodigies, who under the new _regime_ were becoming even more prodigious. Her husband turned away from her; the darlings were estranged from their own mother. Seeing her so little, and pampered and flattered by the brilliant governess, they learned to dote on the funny tall brown woman with the voice like a deep-toned bell, who was ever ready, when they danced into the room, to cast aside her occupation and teach them a new game, or invent for them a new story. Her resources were endless, for her spirits were inexhaustible, and, like Richelieu and his kittens, she found the gambols of childhood entertaining. Gabrielle rarely saw the darlings now. They were isolated in a remote wing, to which she dared not penetrate for fear of some covert insult. Wearied by the ever-present reproach of her sad face, Clovis changed his habits. For the future, he would breakfast in his study, he declared, so as not to interrupt his experiments.