and dejection.

"'As to the drama--it is this. You imagine that I am occupied with
the Council of State, the Chamber, the Courts, Politics.--Why, dear
me, seven hours at night are enough for all that, so much are my
faculties overwrought by the life I lead! Honorine is my real concern.
To recover my wife is my only study; to guard her in her cage, without
her suspecting that she is in my power; to satisfy her needs, to
supply the little pleasure she allows herself, to be always about her
like a sylph without allowing her to see or to suspect me, for if she
did, the future would be lost,--that is my life, my true life.--For
seven years I have never gone to bed without going first to see the
light of her night-lamp, or her shadow on the window curtains.

"'She left my house, choosing to take nothing but the dress she wore
that day. The child carried her magnanimity to the point of folly!
Consequently, eighteen months after her flight she was deserted by her
lover, who was appalled by the cold, cruel, sinister, and revolting
aspect of poverty--the coward! The man had, no doubt, counted on the
easy and luxurious life in Switzerland or Italy which fine ladies
indulge in when they leave their husbands. Honorine has sixty thousand
francs a year of her own. The wretch left the dear creature expecting
an infant, and without a penny. In the month of November 1820 I found
means to persuade the best _accoucheur_ in Paris to play the part of a
humble suburban apothecary. I induced the priest of the parish in
which the Countess was living to supply her needs as though he were
performing an act of charity. Then to hide my wife, to secure her
against discovery, to find her a housekeeper who would be devoted to
me and be my intelligent confidante--it was a task worthy of Figaro!
You may suppose that to discover where my wife had taken refuge I had