Two years after the winter when Monsieur Claes returned to chemistry, the aspect of his house was changed.

Whether it were that society was affronted by his perpetual absent-mindedness and chose to think itself in the way, or that Madame Claes's secret anxieties made her less agreeable than before, certain it is that she no longer saw any but her intimate friends.

Balthazar went nowhere, shut himself up in his laboratory all day, sometimes stayed there all night, and only appeared in the bosom of his family at dinner-time.
After the second year he no longer passed the summer at his country-house, and his wife was unwilling to live there alone.

Sometimes he went to walk and did not return till the following day, leaving Madame Claes a prey to mortal anxiety during the night.

After causing a fruitless search for him through the town, whose gates, like those of other fortified places, were closed at night, it was impossible to send into the country, and the unhappy woman could only wait and suffer till morning.