"He loves me no longer!" thought Gillette, when she was once more
alone.

She regretted her promise. But before long she fell a prey to an
anguish far more cruel than her regret; and she struggled vainly to
drive forth a terrible fear which forced its way into her mind. She
felt that she loved him less as the suspicion rose in her heart that
he was less worthy than she had thought him.



CHAPTER II

Three months after the first meeting of Porbus and Poussin, the former
went to see Maitre Frenhofer. He found the old man a prey to one of
those deep, self-developed discouragements, whose cause, if we are to
believe the mathematicians of health, lies in a bad digestion, in the
wind, in the weather, in some swelling of the intestines, or else,
according to casuists, in the imperfections of our moral nature; the
fact being that the good man was simply worn out by the effort to
complete his mysterious picture. He was seated languidly in a large
oaken chair of vast dimensions covered with black leather; and without
changing his melancholy attitude he cast on Porbus the distant glance
of a man sunk in absolute dejection.

"Well, maitre," said Porbus, "was the distant ultra-marine, for which
you journeyed to Brussels, worthless? Are you unable to grind a new
white? Is the oil bad, or the brushes restive?"

"Alas!" cried the old man, "I thought for one moment that my work was