Then she took a lover.
Or, rather, she was taken by him.
A lonely evening … A fire in the chimney … A friend who came in by accident … The same friend who had taken care of Madame Nelson for her on that memorable evening … The fall of snow without … A burst of confidence … A sob … A nestling against the caressing hand … It was done …
Months passed. She experienced not one hour of intoxication, not one of that inner absolution which love brings. It was moral slackness and weariness that made her yield again….
Then the consequences appeared.
Of course, the child could not, must not, be born. And it was not born. One can imagine the horror of that tragic time: the criminal flame of sleepless nights, the blood-charged atmosphere of guilty despair, the moans of agony that had to be throttled behind closed doors.
What remained to her was lasting invalidism.
The way from her bed to an invalid's chair was long and hard.
Time passed. Improvements came and gave place to lapses in her condition. Trips to watering-places alternated with visits to sanatoriums.
In those places sat the pallid, anaemic women who had been tortured and ruined by their own or alien guilt. There they sat and engaged in wretched flirtations with flighty neurasthenics.