Opposite, beyond the roofs, stretched the open country till it was lost to sight.  Down below, underneath her, the village square was empty; the stones of the pavement glittered, the weathercocks on the houses were motionless.  At the corner of the street, from a lower storey, rose a kind of humming with strident modulations.  It was Binet turning.

She leant against the embrasure of the window, and reread the letter with angry sneers.  But the more she fixed her attention upon it, the more confused were her ideas.  She saw him again, heard him, encircled him with her arms, and throbs of her heart, that beat against her breast like blows of a sledge-hammer, grew faster and faster, with uneven intervals.  She looked about her with the wish that the earth might crumble into pieces.  Why not end it all?  What restrained her?  She was free.  She advanced, looking at the paving-stones, saying to herself, “Come! come!”

The luminous ray that came straight up from below drew the weight of her body towards the abyss.  It seemed to her that the ground of the oscillating square went up the walls and that the floor dipped on end like a tossing boat.  She was right at the edge, almost hanging, surrounded by vast space.  The blue of the heavens suffused her, the air was whirling in her hollow head; she had but to yield, to let herself be taken; and the humming of the lathe never ceased, like an angry voice calling her.

“Emma!  Emma!” cried Charles.

She stopped.

“Wherever are you?  Come!”

The thought that she had just escaped from death almost made her faint with terror.  She closed her eyes; then she shivered at the touch of a hand on her sleeve; it was Felicite.

“Master is waiting for you, madame; the soup is on the table.”

And she had to go down to sit at table.

She tried to eat.  The food choked her.  Then she unfolded her napkin as if to examine the darns, and she really thought of applying herself to this work, counting the threads in the linen.  Suddenly the remembrance of the letter returned to her.  How had she lost it?  Where could she find it?  But she felt such weariness of spirit that she could not even invent a pretext for leaving the table.  Then she became a coward; she was afraid of Charles; he knew all, that was certain!  Indeed he pronounced these words in a strange manner: 

“We are not likely to see Monsieur Rodolphe soon again, it seems.”

“Who told you?” she said, shuddering.

“Who told me!” he replied, rather astonished at her abrupt tone.  “Why, Girard, whom I met just now at the door of the Cafe Francais.  He has gone on a journey, or is to go.”

She gave a sob.

“What surprises you in that?  He absents himself like that from time to time for a change, and, ma foi, I think he’s right, when one has a fortune and is a bachelor.  Besides, he has jolly times, has our friend.  He’s a bit of a rake.  Monsieur Langlois told me—­”