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Next day his ferment had subsided. The unknown never left him, but she kept her distance. Her less certain features were effaced in mist, her fascination became feebler, and she no longer was his sole preoccupation. The idea, suddenly formed on a word of Des Hermies, that the unknown must be Chantelouve's wife, had, in fashion, checked his fever.
Chantelouve's letters. Every day, since their rupture, she had sent him an inflamed missive, but, as he soon noticed, her Mænad cries were subsiding into plaints and reproaches. She now accused him of ingratitude, and repented having listened to him and having permitted him to participate in sacrileges for which she would have to answer before the heavenly tribunal.
Once outside, Durtal took a long breath. Well, well, his unknown was Chantelouve's wife. Impossible! She had never paid the slightest attention to him. She was silent and cold. Impossible! And yet, why had she spoken that way to Des Hermies? But surely if she had wanted to see him she would have come to his apartment, since they were acquaintances.
He was respected and feared at Chantelouve's, but when one came to know him one found, beneath his defensive shell, great warmth of heart and a capacity for true friendship of the kind that is not expansive but is capable of sacrifice and can always be relied upon. How did he live? Was he rich or just comfortable? No one knew, and he, tight lipped, never spoke of his affairs.
At one of these evening parties, while La Rousseil, recently converted, howled a hymn, Durtal, sitting in a corner having a quiet smoke, had been struck by the physiognomy and bearing of Des Hermies, who stood out sharply from the motley throng of defrocked priests and grubby poets packed into Chantelouve's library and drawing-room.
That this woman's home life is unhappy, and that she does not love the sneaky sacristan to whom she is married, is quite possible, but what is her real rôle in that household? Is she accessory to Chantelouve's pecuniary dodges? If that is the case I don't see why she should pick on me.
I make about three thousand livres, and I can hardly contrive to keep myself going. "So that is not her game. I don't know that I want to have anything to do with their kind of people," he concluded, somewhat chilled by these reflections. "But I am a big fool. What I know about them proves that my unknown beloved is not Chantelouve's wife, and, all things considered, I am glad she isn't."
Since the Middle Ages it has been the coward's crime, for human justice does not prosecute it, and one can commit it with impunity, but it is the most extreme of excesses for a believer, and Docre believes in Christ, or he wouldn't hate Him so. "A monster! And what ignoble relations he must have had with Chantelouve's wife! Now, how shall I make her speak up?
She would not have started this correspondence under a pseudonym "H. de Maubel!" he said suddenly, "why, Mme. Chantelouve's name is Hyacinthe, a boy's name which suits her very well. She lives in the rue Babneux not vary far from the rue Littré post-office. She is a blonde, she has a maid, she is a fervent Catholic. She's the one."
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