Of her four adherents, Crevel alone was exempted from the rule —­Crevel, the master of the little “bijou” apartment; and he displayed on his countenance an air of really insolent beatitude, notwithstanding the wordless reproofs administered by Valerie in frowns and meaning grimaces.  His triumphant paternity beamed in every feature.

When Valerie was whispering a word of correction in his ear, he snatched her hand, and put in: 

“To-morrow, my Duchess, you shall have your own little house!  The papers are to be signed to-morrow.”

“And the furniture?” said she, with a smile.

“I have a thousand shares in the Versailles rive gauche railway.  I bought them at twenty-five, and they will go up to three hundred in consequence of the amalgamation of the two lines, which is a secret told to me.  You shall have furniture fit for a queen.  But then you will be mine alone henceforth?”

“Yes, burly Maire,” said this middle-class Madame de Merteuil.  “But behave yourself; respect the future Madame Crevel.”

“My dear cousin,” Lisbeth was saying to the Baron, “I shall go to see Adeline early to-morrow; for, as you must see, I cannot, with any decency, remain here.  I will go and keep house for your brother the Marshal.”

“I am going home this evening,” said Hulot.

“Very well, you will see me at breakfast to-morrow,” said Lisbeth, smiling.

She understood that her presence would be necessary at the family scene that would take place on the morrow.  And the very first thing in the morning she went to see Victorin and to tell him that Hortense and Wenceslas had parted.

When the Baron went home at half-past ten, Mariette and Louise, who had had a hard day, were locking up the apartment.  Hulot had not to ring.

Very much put out at this compulsory virtue, the husband went straight to his wife’s room, and through the half-open door he saw her kneeling before her Crucifix, absorbed in prayer, in one of those attitudes which make the fortune of the painter or the sculptor who is so happy to invent and then to express them.  Adeline, carried away by her enthusiasm, was praying aloud: 

“O God, have mercy and enlighten him!”

The Baroness was praying for her Hector.

At this sight, so unlike what he had just left, and on hearing this petition founded on the events of the day, the Baron heaved a sigh of deep emotion.  Adeline looked round, her face drowned in tears.  She was so convinced that her prayer had been heard, that, with one spring, she threw her arms round Hector with the impetuosity of happy affection.  Adeline had given up all a wife’s instincts; sorrow had effaced even the memory of them.  No feeling survived in her but those of motherhood, of the family honor, and the pure attachment of a Christian wife for a husband who has gone astray—­the saintly tenderness which survives all else in a woman’s soul.