November came. It was not foggy, but there was a good deal of rain, and the air was damp and chilly. The vines that had been so fresh and blithe through the summer now disconsolately waved their straggling helpless branches to and fro from the little balconies. The great plains, in which lay hid the promise of next year's abundance, looked brown and dreary without their wealth of golden corn. Therese used to escape to her own room when the teaching was over, and shiver there rather than sit with Madame Roulleau in the little ugly room with its great stove filling up one corner. Her walks with Nannon were necessarily fewer and interrupted, owing to the shortening days and the rain, and she suffered for want of them. She grew pale and thin, her step lost its elasticity, her mouth its smile. Was she never to escape from this life, this weary, hateful treadmill? When depression seizes on one point it assails us on all; those cruel words of Fabien's became much more terrible to her than ever they had seemed before. She was among those he had renounced; what was her love that it should hold him through those years, across unknown distances? And then she would determine that he was dead. One day--while it was quite early, and Therese was working away at the children, with a dreary sense of drudgery, which did them and herself no good--Mme. Roulleau, who had gone to her bedroom to hunt for something in a great press, was startled by her husband coming in upon her with a white scared face. "Zenobie--Zenobie, _mon amie_!" he said piteously. "Well? What now?" "That which we dreaded is arriving--Monsieur Saint-Martin! What will become of us?" "Is Monsieur Saint-Martin here?" inquired madame with perfect coolness, although she turned a shade paler. "Here! The saints forbid!" "The saints are not likely to be on your side, so that I would not place much confidence in their protection, if I were you," said his wife, sarcastically. "Have the goodness, Ignace, to inform me what this great event may be that you find so disturbing." "_Mon amie_, do not be angry. I have come to you at once. But it is ruin. Monsieur Deshoulieres has just been here; he has received a letter--" "Well?" "A letter about our affair." "Give it to me." "How did she know I had it?" murmured the little man, half in admiration, half in fear, as he took it from his pocket. Madame received it in silence. The note consisted only of a few lines:--"If Monsieur Deshoulieres desires tidings of Monsieur Fabien Saint-Martin, nephew of Monsieur Moreau, recently deceased, let him find himself at the Lion d'Or, at Pont-huine, on the afternoon of the 20th of November, at three o'clock." No more. The post-mark was Paris. "The twentieth! That is to-day," remarked madame meditatively. The paleness had increased a little; her lips were set more tightly. "One hundred and eighty francs a month," groaned Roulleau. "And M. Deshoulieres is gone?"