But for some years she had been behaving unkindly to M. Lerebour, always irritable and harsh, as though she were tormented by a secret sorrow she could not confess. A sort of misunderstanding resulted. They hardly spoke to one another, and Madame, whose name was Palmyre, was constantly loading Monsieur, whose name was Gustave, with disagreeable remarks, wounding illusions, and sharp words, without apparent reason.
He bowed under it, worried, but still gay, blessed with such a fund of contentment that he could shoulder these intimate bickerings. Yet he wondered what unknown cause could be making his wife grow more and more bitter, for he felt sure that her irritation had a cause which was not only hidden, but so difficult to discover that all his efforts were wasted.
He often asked her:
“Look here, dear, do tell me what grievance you have against me. I can feel you are concealing something.”
“No, nothing, absolutely nothing,” she invariably replied. “And anyhow, if I had any reason for being unhappy, it would be your business to guess it. I don’t like men who never realise anything, men who are so slack and incapable that you have to go and help them understand the smallest trifle.”
“I see you don’t mean to tell me,” he would murmur, discouraged, and would go off, searching for the mystery.
The nights especially became very painful for him; for they still shared the same bed, as in happy and simple homes. At these times there were no vexations with which she did not harass him. She would choose the moment when they were lying side by side to load him with her cruelest sneers and insults. Principally, she reproached him for growing fat:
“You take up all the room, you’re getting so fat. And you perspire in the back like melted lard. Do you suppose I like it!”
She made him get up on the slightest pretexts, sending him downstairs to get a newspaper she had forgotten, or the bottle of orange-flower water, which he could not find because she had hidden it. And she would exclaim in a furious and sarcastic tone:
“But you ought to know where to find it, you great booby!”
And when he had prowled for an hour all over the sleeping house and returned empty-handed, all the thanks he would get was:
“Come on, get back into bed; a little walking will make you thinner; you’re getting as flabby as a sponge.”
She was always waking him up, saying she had cramp in the stomach and insisting on his rubbing her with flannel soaked in eau de cologne. And he would do his best to cure her, miserable at seeing her ill, and would suggest rousing Céleste, their maid. Then she would lose her temper, and shout:
“Is the dolt quite off his head! It’s all over, I’m all right now! Go to sleep again, you great ninny!”
“You’re quite sure you’re all right?” he would ask.
“Yes, keep quiet, and let me go to sleep,” she flung at him harshly. “Don’t bother me any more. You’re no good at anything, you can’t even rub a woman.”
“But … darling …” he would begin, desperately.
“No buts,” she would interrupt in exasperation. “That’s enough, isn’t it? Now do shut up …” and she would turn to the wall.
One night she shook him so abruptly that he started with fright and found himself sitting up with a rapidity unusual for him.
“What? … What is it? …” he stammered.
She was holding him by the arm and pinching hard enough to make him cry out.
“I heard a noise in the house,” she whispered in his ear.
Accustomed to Mme. Lerebour’s frequent alarms, he was not excessively uneasy, and asked calmly:
“What sort of noise, darling?”
She was trembling as though out of her wits, and replied:
“A noise … well, a noise … a noise of footsteps. … There is someone about.”
He was incredulous:
“Someone about? Do you think so? No; you must be mistaken. Who do you think it could be?”
She shook with rage:
“Who? … Who? … Why, thieves, you fool!”
He calmly snuggled under the sheets again.
“No, darling, there’s no one. You must have been dreaming.”
At this she threw back the coverlet and jumped out of bed, exasperated.
“So you’re as cowardly as you are useless! At all events, I won’t let myself be murdered in my bed on account of your cowardice.”
And snatching up the tongs from the fireplace, she settled herself at the bolted door in an attitude of combat.
Stirred by this example of valour, and perhaps ashamed, he rose sulkily and, without taking off his cotton nightcap, he took the shovel and placed himself opposite his better half.
For twenty minutes they waited in the deepest silence. No fresh sound disturbed the repose of the house. Then Madame, furious, went back to bed, declaring:
“But I was certain there was someone.”
To avoid any quarrel, he made no allusion during the day to her panic.
But the following night, Mme. Lerebour woke her husband with even more violence than on the previous night, and, gasping, faltered:
“Gustave, Gustave, someone has just opened the garden gate.”
Astonished at this persistence, he thought his wife a prey to somnambulism, and he was on the point of trying to break this dangerous slumber, when he fancied he really did hear a faint noise under the walls of the house.
He rose, ran to the window, and saw, yes, really saw a white shadow hurrying across a path.
“There is someone,” he murmured, with a sickening qualm.
Then he regained his senses, pulled himself together, and, suddenly exalted by the formidable fury of a landowner whose property is not being respected, said:
“Wait, wait, and you shall see.”
He rushed to the writing-table, opened it, grabbed his revolver, and dashed towards the stairs.
His frantic wife followed, screaming:
“Gustave, Gustave, don’t desert me, don’t leave me alone, Gustave! Gustave!”
But he paid no attention to her; his hand was
