"Two or three days later I was entering my house, in conversation with
a friend, when in the hall I suddenly felt something as heavy as a stone
weighing on my heart, and I could not account for it. And it was this,
it was this: in passing through the hall, I had noticed something which
reminded me of HIM. Not until I reached my study did I realize what it
was, and I returned to the hall to verify my conjecture. Yes, I was
not mistaken. It was his overcoat (everything that belonged to him,
I, without realizing it, had observed with extraordinary attention). I
questioned the servant. That was it. He had come.

"I passed near the parlor, through my children's study-room. Lise, my
daughter, was sitting before a book, and the old nurse, with my youngest
child, was beside the table, turning the cover of something or other.
In the parlor I heard a slow arpeggio, and his voice, deadened, and a
denial from her. She said: 'No, no! There is something else!' And it
seemed to me that some one was purposely deadening the words by the aid
of the piano.

"My God! How my heart leaped! What were my imaginations! When I remember
the beast that lived in me at that moment, I am seized with fright. My
heart was first compressed, then stopped, and then began to beat like
a hammer. The principal feeling, as in every bad feeling, was pity for
myself. 'Before the children, before the old nurse,' thought I, 'she
dishonors me. I will go away. I can endure it no longer. God knows what
I should do if. . . . But I must go in.'

"The old nurse raised her eyes to mine, as if she understood, and advised
me to keep a sharp watch. 'I must go in,' I said to myself, and, without
knowing what I did, I opened the door. He was sitting at the piano and