Close by, a white Artemis on her pedestal bent forward--eager--her gleaming bow in air, watching, as it were, the arrow she had just sped toward the windows of Madame de Pompadour; and beside her, a nymph, daughter of gods, turned to the palace with a free, startled movement, shading her eyes that she might gaze the more intently on that tattered tricolour which floats above the palace of 'Le Roi Soleil.' * * * * * 'Oh, poor Arthur--poor Arthur! And I did it!--I did it!' It was the cry of Eugenie's inmost life.
And before she knew, she found herself enveloped in memories that rolled in upon her like waves of storm.

How long it had been before she would allow herself to see anything amiss with this marriage she had herself made! And, indeed, it was only since Elsie's illness that things dimly visible before had sprung into that sharp and piteous relief in which they stood to-day.

Before it, indications, waywardnesses, the faults of a young and petted wife.

But since the physical collapse, the inner motives and passions had stood up bare and black, like the ribs of a wrecked ship from the sand.

And as Eugenie had been gradually forced to understand them, they had worked upon her own mind as a silent, yet ever-growing accusation, against which she defended herself in vain.
Surely, surely she had done no wrong! To have allowed Arthur to go on binding his life ever more and more closely to hers, would have been a crime.