The next day, using the end of his legal Easter holiday, he took the train to Paris, without letting anyone know of his journey. This absence, which would scarcely be remarked, lasted for several days. At Grenoble nobody suspected it. The lawyer had never been very confidential, and his goings and comings helped to preserve the mystery. As soon as he came back he went to the Rue Haxo. Elizabeth, with languor and an unsteady step, was slowly taking up her routine again. At the end of his visit, which was very short, he put this question to her:
"If they separated, what would you do?"
She evaded giving an answer.
"I do not know," she said.
"If he were free—if he came back to you."
She fixed him with her eyes, enlarged by illness, and lit up with a somber flame:
"I no longer believe that possible."
Scarcely had she said these words, than she felt as if she had refused an offer from Albert. In despair, she recalled the promise that she had sworn at Mme. Derize's death bed. She had said she would forgive, forgive without restriction. And now that she was recovering she had said "Too late," which is the excuse of the weak. When Philippe had gone, she reproached herself, but she was so weak. Had she not suffered too much, waited too long? Had she not been sufficiently humiliated by life? When a person had begun to enter on the path of abnegation and sacrifice, did he never stop, must he build an everlasting Calvary? To escape, to come back, to attempt to find personal happiness elsewhere, that she could not do; but, like an overladen beast, who resists an ascent, she felt neither the strength, nor the courage to go on. She did not know that one walks much longer when overtired, than before becoming fatigued. It is always at the end that an ascent demands the greatest effort.
After a brief glimpse of spring, the wind and rain had taken possession of Grenoble. One could hardly distinguish the neighboring mountains under the leaden sky. Thus the trip to Saint Martin was delayed, although Elizabeth was anxious to go away, and was eager for the open air. Encouraged by the change in the weather, she began her preparations on the 1st of May. A letter, which she received on the 8th, addressed to Mme. Albert Derize, née Molay-Norrois, Boulevard des Adieux, from whence it came back to her, altered her plans. It was a letter with the English postmark, with the address in a handwriting not entirely unknown to her, and which at once disquieted her. She held it in her hand defiantly before opening it, and did not decide to break the seal without a presentiment of evil. She was not mistaken: the foreign paper, those straight flowing letters, which she had seen before, had already broken up her life. She turned the pages which were numerous, and read the signature: "Anne de Sézery." Then she let the letter drop. How could she have had the audacity to write to her? By what right did she inflict such an insult upon her? Crushed, she sat down, but involuntarily looked on the ground. At last she bent over and picked up the paper which lay there. A few months ago she would have decided not to read it. But she had nothing more to hope, nor to fear. In certain excesses of sorrow, we lose the narrow sense of our dignity which we reserve for our intimate life alone. She began reading this strange letter with suspicion and aversion, ready at the least stinging word to discontinue and not to finish it. She read to the end without stopping.
"LONDON, 6th May, 1907.