Two months later,
the investigating magistrate had resumed his ordinary avocations. But
try as he would, he only went through his duties like a body without a
soul. He felt that something was broken.
Once he ventured to pay a visit to his old friend, the marchioness. On
seeing him, she uttered a cry of terror. She took him for a spectre, so
much was he changed in appearance.
As she dreaded dismal faces, she ever after shut her door to him.
Claire was ill for a week after seeing him. "How he loved me," thought
she! "It has almost killed him! Can Albert love me as much?" She did not
dare to answer herself. She felt a desire to console him, to speak to
him, attempt something; but he came no more.
M. Daburon was not, however, a man to give way without a struggle. He
tried, as his father advised him, to distract his thoughts. He sought
for pleasure, and found disgust, but not forgetfulness. Often he went
so far as the threshold of debauchery; but the pure figure of Claire,
dressed in white garments, always barred the doors against him.
Then he took refuge in work, as in a sanctuary; condemned himself to the
most incessant labour, and forbade himself to think of Claire, as the
consumptive forbids himself to meditate upon his malady.
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