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. Taking Madame Claes at once in his arms, he opened the
door upon the little antechamber, and ran so rapidly up the ancient
wooden staircase that his wife's dress having caught on the jaws of
one of the griffins that supported the balustrade, a whole breadth was
torn off with a loud noise. He kicked in the door of the vestibule
between their chambers, but the door of Josephine's bedroom was
locked.
He gently placed her on a chair, saying to himself, "My God! the key,
where is the key?"
"Thank you, dear friend," said Madame Claes, opening her eyes. "This
is the first time for a long, long while that I have been so near your
heart."
"Good God!" cried Claes, "the key!--here come the servants."
Josephine signed to him to take a key that hung from a ribbon at her
waist. After opening the door, Balthazar laid his wife on a sofa, and
left the room to stop the frightened servants from coming up by giving
them orders to serve the dinner; then he went back to Madame Claes.
"What is it, my dear life?" he said, sitting down beside her, and
taking her hand and kissing it.
"Nothing--now," she answered. "I suffer no longer. Only, I would I had
the power of God to pour all the gold of the world at thy feet."
"Why gold?" he asked. He took her in his arms, pressed her to him and
kissed her once more upon the forehead.
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