"I pity you, poor Suzette," he said, "but it is quite impossible for us to be more to each other. My people would never speak to me if I behaved so absurdly. Go to bed now, and stop crying; good-night."
She staggered up, so crushed and bowed and haggard that his conscience smote him. He could not have done a greater cruelty to one like her—teaching her to hope, then to despair. The next day, and the next, she worked at Fanchette's. His remittance did not come; he was out of temper, and said in jest that he would set out for Italy within a week. There was a pale decision in her countenance the fourth morning. She put on her gray robe and a little cap which she had made. He did not offer to kiss her, and she did not beseech it. He saw her no more until nine o'clock, when she came in with Fanchette, and her cheeks were flushed as with wine. This made him more angry. He said nothing to either of them and went to sleep silently.
The fifth day she returned as before. He was sitting up by the fireplace; his rent was due; he was quite cast down, and said:
"Dear, when my purse was full you never went away two whole days, leaving me alone."
"You are to leave me, Ralph, forever!" But she was touched, and in the morning said that she would come back at midday. Still no remittance. He felt like a bear. Twelve o'clock came—Suzette did not appear. It drifted on to one; he listened vainly for her feet upon the stairs. At two he sat at the window watching; she entered at three, half mild, half timorous, and gave him a paper of sugar plums.
"Where did those come from?" he asked, with a scowl.
"Fanchette gave them to me."
"I don't believe it; there is kirsch wasser on your lips; you have been drinking."
She drew her handkerchief from her pocket; a little box, gilt-edged, came out with it, and rolled into the middle of the floor. Suzette leaped for it with a quick pallor; he wrenched it from her hands after a fierce struggle, and delving into the soft cotton with which it was packed, brought out sleeve-buttons of gold and a pearl breastpin. They were new and glittering, and they flashed a burning suspicion into his heart. He forced her unresisting into a chair, and flung them far out of the window, over the house-roofs. Then he sat down a moment to gain breath, and marked her with eyes in which she saw that she was already tried and sentenced.
"Who gave you those things, Suzette?" he asked in a forced, strange monotone.