"I did well to hurry," thought she, with a sort of bitterness. "I did well to yield to my first instinct of generosity; to-morrow it would have been too late. I would not, perhaps, have had the courage to sacrifice myself to Antonine. How strange it is! An hour ago, in thinking of Frantz and her, I had not a feeling of jealousy or pain, and only a sweet melancholy, but now by degrees my heart is contracted and filled with sorrow, and this moment I suffer—oh, yes, how I suffer!"
The abrupt entrance of Sophie interrupted the reflections of the marquise, and she guessed that some great misfortune had happened by the frightened, almost wild, expression of Madame Dutertre, who said to her, in a short, panting voice:
"Madeleine, you have offered me aid, and now I accept it!"
"Great God! Sophie, what is the matter?"
"Our condition is desperate."
"To-morrow, this evening, perhaps, Charles will be arrested."
"Your husband?"
"Arrested, I say; oh, my God!"
"But what for? What is it?"