The idea of belonging to him shocked her.

The thought that they might meet again in the small apartment of the Rue Spontini was so painful to her that she discarded it at once.

She preferred to think that an unforeseen event would prevent their meeting again--the end of the world, for example.

M.
Lagrange, member of the Academie des Sciences, had told her the day before of a comet which some day might meet the earth, envelop it with its flaming hair, imbue animals and plants with unknown poisons, and make all men die in a frenzy of laughter.

She expected that this, or something else, would happen next month.