this worthy deed the allies got the young man made a prefet elsewhere.

"I shall never cease to regret," said he, as he quitted Sancerre,
"that I did not succeed in pleasing Madame de la Baudraye; that would
have made my triumph complete!"

The household that was thus racked by domestic troubles was calm on
the surface; here were two ill-assorted but resigned beings, and the
indescribable propriety, the lie that society insists on, and which to
Dinah was an unendurable yoke. Why did she long to throw off the mask
she had worn for twelve years? Whence this weariness which, every day,
increased her hope of finding herself a widow?

The reader who has noted all the phases of her existence will have
understood the various illusions by which Dinah, like many another
woman, had been deceived. After an attempt to master Monsieur de la
Baudraye, she had indulged the hope of becoming a mother. Between
those miserable disputes over household matters and the melancholy
conviction as to her fate, quite a long time had elapsed. Then, when
she had looked for consolation, the consoler, Monsieur de Chargeboeuf
had left her. Thus, the overwhelming temptation which commonly causes
women to sin had hitherto been absent. For if there are, after all,
some women who make straight for unfaithfulness, are there not many
more who cling to hope, and do not fall till they have wandered long
in a labyrinth of secret woes?

Such was Dinah. She had so little impulse to fail in her duty, that
she did not care enough for Monsieur de Clagny to forgive him his
defeat.