For some time past, she seemed to him feverish, and full of strange capriciousness, laughing and turning sad without reason.

This unsettled demeanour alarmed him, for he guessed, in part, what her struggles and troubles must be like.
He began to hesitate, having an atrocious dread of risking his tranquillity.

He was now living peacefully, in wise contentment, and he feared to endanger the equilibrium of his life, by binding himself to a nervous woman, whose passion had already driven him crazy.

But he did not reason these matters out, he felt by instinct all the anguish he would be subjected to, if he made Therese his wife.
The first shock he received, and one that roused him in his sluggishness, was the thought that he must at length begin to think of his marriage.

It was almost fifteen months since the death of Camille.
For an instant, Laurent had the idea of not marrying at all, of jilting Therese.