.

ON THE GROUND.
When Maud Gorka left the house on the Rue Leopardi she walked on at first rapidly, blindly, without seeing, without hearing anything, like a wounded animal which runs through the thicket to escape danger, to escape its wounds, to escape itself.

It was a little more than half-past three o'clock when the unhappy woman hastened from the studio, unable to bear near her the presence of Lydia Maitland, of that sinister worker of vengeance who had so cruelly revealed to her, with such indisputable proofs, the atrocious affair, the long, the infamous, the inexpiable treason.
It was almost six o'clock before Maud Gorka really regained consciousness.

A very common occurrence aroused her from the somnambulism of suffering in which she had wandered for two hours.

The storm which had threatened since noon at length broke.