In marrying, she had known something of this love, but very far from everything that she had understood as promised her, everything that she expected.

How many disillusions! How much suffering! And an unexpected torture,--the children! This torture had told upon her, and then, thanks to the obliging doctor, she had learned that it is possible to avoid having children.

That had made her glad.

She had tried, and she was now revived for the only thing that she knew,--for love.

But love with a husband polluted by jealousy and ill-nature was no longer her ideal.