There was also one of the servants of the company, that headguard, Henri Dauvergne, who inconvenienced Séverine and Jacques. He happened to be in charge of this Friday train, and he displayed importunate amiability towards the young woman. The attentions of Henri became so apparent, that Roubaud observed them with sneering countenance on the mornings when he was on duty at the departure from Havre. The headguard was in the habit of reserving an entire compartment for his wife, and took pains to see she was comfortable there, feeling the foot-warmer to make sure the water was hot, and so forth. On one occasion the husband, while continuing a chat with Jacques, attracted his notice to the proceedings of the young man with a wink, as if to inquire whether he permitted that kind of thing. In the family quarrels, Roubaud flatly accused his wife of making love to the pair. And Séverine imagined, for an instant, that Jacques also had this belief, which was the cause of his sadness. In a burst of tears, she protested her innocence, telling him to kill her if she were unfaithful. But he merely laughed, and, turning very pale, embraced her, saying he was convinced of her fidelity, and that he sincerely hoped he would never kill anybody. The first evenings of March were frightful, and they were obliged to interrupt their meetings. The trips to Paris, the few hours of freedom sought so far away, were no longer enough for Séverine. She experienced an increasing desire to have Jacques with her, always with her, to live together, without ever leaving one another. And her execration for her husband increased. The mere presence of this man threw her into an unhealthy and intolerable state of excitement. She so docile, with all the complacence of a tender-hearted woman, became irritated as soon as it was a question of Roubaud, flying into a passion at the least opposition he made to her will. On such occasions the shade of her raven hair seemed to darken the limpid blue of her eyes. She became fierce, accusing him of having so thoroughly spoilt her existence that henceforth it would be impossible to live together. Had not he done it all? If they were no longer as man and wife, if she had a sweetheart, was it not his own fault? His sluggish tranquillity, the look of indifference with which he met her anger, his round shoulders, his enlarged stomach, all that dreadful fat, resembling happiness, completed her exasperation, she who suffered. Her one thought, now, was to break with him, to get away, to go and begin life again elsewhere. Oh! could she but commence again, wipe out the past, return to the life she led previous to all these abominations, find herself as she was at fifteen, and love, and be loved, and live as she dreamed of living then!