A last misfortune which now befell her did not elicit even a sigh from her.  One afternoon, while she had been down stairs, she had left the window open.  The wind had suddenly sprung up, slammed the blinds, and thus upset a chair.  On this chair hung her cashmere; it fell into the fireplace, in which a little fire was still burning; and when she came back she found the shawl half-burnt to ashes.  It was the only article of value which she still possessed; and she might at any time have procured several hundred francs for it.

“Well,” she said, “what does it matter?  It means three months taken from my life; that is all.”

And she did not think of it any more; she did not even trouble herself about the rent, which became due in October.

“I shall not be able to pay it,” she said to herself.  “Mrs. Chevassat will give me notice, and then the hour will have come.”

Still, to her great surprise, the worthy woman from below did not scold her for not having the money ready, and even promised she would make the owner of the house give her time.  This inexplicable forbearance gave Henrietta a week’s respite.  But at last, one morning, she woke up, having not a cent left, having nothing even, she thought, that she could get money for, and being very hungry.

“Well,” she thought, as if announcing to her own soul that the catastrophe had at last come, “all I need now is a few minutes’ courage.”

She said so in her mind; but in reality she was chilled to the heart by the fearful certainty that the crisis had really come:  she felt as if the executioner were at the door of the room, ready to announce her sentence of death.  And yet, for a month now, she had thought of suicide only; and the evening before she had thought it over with a kind of delight.

“I am surely not such a coward?” she said to herself in a fit of rage.

Yes, she was afraid.  Yes, she told herself in vain that there was no other choice left to her but that between death and Sir Thorn, or M. de Brevan.  She was terrified.

Alas! she was only twenty years old; she had never felt such exuberance of life within her; she wanted to live,—­to live a month more, a week, a day!

If only her shawl had not been burnt!  Then, examining with haggard eyes her chamber, she saw that exquisite piece of embroidery which she had undertaken.  It was a dress, covered all over with work of marvellous delicacy and exquisite outlines.  Unfortunately, it was far from being finished.

“Never mind!” she said to herself; “perhaps they will give me something for it.”

And, wrapping the dress up hastily, she hurried to offer it for sale to the old woman who had already bought her ear-rings, and then her watch.  The fearful old hag seemed to be overcome with surprise when she saw this marvel of skill.

“That’s very fine,” she said; “why, it is magnificent! and, if it were finished, it would be worth a mint of money; but as it is no one would want it.”