Then Julie wished to live to save her child from a stepmother's
terrible thraldom, which might crush her darling's life. Upon this new
vision of threatened possibilities followed one of those paroxysms of
thought at fever-heat which consume whole years of life.

Henceforward husband and wife were doomed to be separated by a whole
world of thought, and all the weight of that world she must bear
alone. Hitherto she had felt sure that Victor loved her, in so far as
he could be said to love; she had been the slave of pleasures which
she did not share; to-day the satisfaction of knowing that she
purchased his contentment with her tears was hers no longer. She was
alone in the world, nothing was left to her now but a choice of evils.
In the calm stillness of the night her despondency drained her of all
her strength. She rose from her sofa beside the dying fire, and stood
in the lamplight gazing, dry-eyed, at her child, when M. d'Aiglemont
came in. He was in high spirits. Julie called to him to admire Helene
as she lay asleep, but he met his wife's enthusiasm with a
commonplace:

"All children are nice at that age."

He closed the curtains about the cot after a careless kiss on the
child's forehead. Then he turned his eyes on Julie, took her hand and
drew her to sit beside him on the sofa, where she had been sitting
with such dark thoughts surging up in her mind.

"You are looking very handsome to-night, Mme. d'Aiglemont," he
exclaimed, with the gaiety intolerable to the Marquise, who knew its
emptiness so well.