Laurent, ashamed of his brutality, began walking slowly from the bed to the window. Suffering alone--the horrible burn--had made him exact a kiss from Thérèse, and when her frigid lips met the scorching scar, he felt the pain more acutely. This kiss obtained by violence had just crushed him. The shock had been so painful, that for nothing in the world would he have received another. He cast his eyes upon the woman with whom he was to live, and who sat shuddering, doubled up before the fire, turning her back to him; and he repeated to himself that he no longer loved this woman, and that she no longer loved him. For nearly an hour Thérèse maintained her dejected attitude, while Laurent silently walked backward and forward. Both inwardly acknowledged, with terror, that their passion was dead, that they had killed it in killing Camille. The embers on the hearth were gently dying out; a sheet of bright, clear fire shone above the ashes. Little by little, the heat of the room had become stifling; the flowers were fading, making the thick air sickly, with their heavy odour. Laurent, all at once, had an hallucination. As he turned round, coming from the window to the bed, he saw Camille in a dark corner, between the chimney and wardrobe. The face of his victim looked greenish and distorted, just as he had seen it on the slab at the Morgue. He remained glued to the carpet, fainting, leaning against a piece of furniture for support. At a hollow rattle in his throat, Thérèse raised her head. “There, there!” exclaimed Laurent in a terrified tone. With extended arm, he pointed to the dark corner where he perceived the sinister face of Camille. Thérèse, infected by his terror, went and pressed against him. “It is his portrait,” she murmured in an undertone, as if the face of her late husband could hear her. “His portrait?” repeated Laurent, whose hair stood on end. “Yes, you know, the painting you did,” she replied. “My aunt was to have removed it to her room. No doubt she forgot to take it down.” “Really; his portrait,” said he. The murderer had some difficulty in recognising the canvas. In his trouble he forgot that it was he who had drawn those clashing strokes, who had spread on those dirty tints that now terrified him. Terror made him see the picture as it was, vile, wretchedly put together, muddy, displaying the grimacing face of a corpse on a black ground. His own work astonished and crushed him by its atrocious ugliness; particularly the two eyes which seemed floating in soft, yellowish orbits, reminding him exactly of the decomposed eyes of the drowned man at the Morgue. For a moment, he remained breathless, thinking Thérèse was telling an untruth to allay his fears. Then he distinguished the frame, and little by little became calm. “Go and take it down,” said he in a very low tone to the young woman. “Oh! no, I’m afraid,” she answered with a shiver.