When she saw Balthazar about to leave the room, her impulse was to spring towards him; then a cruel thought restrained her--she should stand before him! would she not seem ridiculous in the eyes of a man no longer under the glamour of love--who might see true?
She resolved to avoid all dangerous chances at so solemn a moment, and remained seated, saying in a clear voice, "Balthazar." He turned mechanically and coughed; then, paying no attention to his wife, he walked to one of the little square boxes that are placed at intervals along the wainscoting of every room in Holland and Belgium, and spat in it.

This man, who took no thought of other persons, never forgot the inveterate habit of using those boxes.

To poor Josephine, unable to find a reason for this singularity, the constant care which her husband took of the furniture caused her at all times an unspeakable pang, but at this moment the pain was so violent that it put her beside herself and made her exclaim in a tone of impatience, which expressed her wounded feelings,-- "Monsieur, I am speaking to you!" "What does that mean ?" answered Balthazar, turning quickly, and casting a look of reviving intelligence upon his wife, which fell upon her like a thunderbolt.
"Forgive me, my friend," she said, turning pale.

She tried to rise and put out her hand to him, but her strength gave way and she fell back.

"I am dying!" she cried in a voice choked by sobs.
At the sight Balthazar had, like all abstracted persons, a vivid reaction of mind; and he divined, so to speak, the secret cause of this attack.