Ordinarily, he returned only in time for dinner, and rarely saw Clemence except between that time and supper, at the conclusion of which, fatigued by his day's work, he hastened to seek the repose of the just.

Husband and wife, while living under the same roof, were thus almost completely isolated from each other; night for one was day for the other.
By the haste with which Clemence shortened her preparations for the night, one would have said that she must have been blessed with an unusually sleepy sensation.

But when she lay in bed, with her head under her arm, like a swan with his neck under his wing, and almost in the attitude of Correggio's Magdalen, her eyes, which sparkled with a feverish light, betrayed the fact that she had sought the solitude of her bed in order to indulge more freely in deep meditation.
With marvelous fidelity she went over the slightest events of the day, to which by a constant effort of willpower, she had seemed so indifferent.

First, she saw Gerfaut with his face covered with blood, and the thought of the terrible sensation which this sight caused her made her heart throb violently.

She then recalled him as she next saw him, in the drawing-room by her husband's side, seated in the very chair that she had left but a moment before.