The blood surged violently into her face; she tottered, and mechanically caught at the table for support.
“Good heavens, say something or other! Where am I to turn? What am I to do? Why, if nothing is done, I may be arrested as a thief!” he cried, with gathering excitement, springing up and pacing the room. “Nathalie, do you hear! Speak! I—Léon de Beaudrillart—arrested! Do you hear!” And with a sudden change he flung himself into a seat, arms and head on the table, and wept like a child.
Nathalie shuddered. Then he began to moan:
“Why did I tell her! She cares nothing for me; just because I am in trouble she has not a word to fling. And this is my wife, who talks of loving me—”
“Oh, Léon, Léon, I love you!”
It came like a cry from a distance, from death itself. She knelt down and flung her arm around him, and strained him passionately to her—“I love you, I love you, do you hear!” He clung to her as if he had been a child.
“Help me, then, chérie, help me!”
“Yes, yes,” she murmured, “courage. We will bear it together.”
He went on, recovering himself as he spoke, and as buoyant as a bubble. “You are so clever, my Nathalie, your wits will certainly be able to think of some way out of it, and you cannot tell what a comfort it is to me that you should know all at last. A hundred times I have been on the very point of telling you, but there is something so disagreeable in explanations that my heart failed. Now you see the difficulty of the position, do you not! What do you think! Is there any use in applying to another lawyer!”
She shook her head.