Claes had faith in his work which enabled him to walk without faltering on a path which, to his wife, was the edge of a precipice.

For him faith, for her doubt,--for her the heavier burden: does not the woman ever suffer for the two?
At this moment she chose to believe in his success, that she might justify to herself her connivance in the probable wreck of their fortunes.
"The love of all my life can be no recompense for your devotion, Pepita," said Claes, deeply moved.
He had scarcely uttered the words when Marguerite and Felicie entered the room and wished him good-morning.

Madame Claes lowered her eyes and remained for a moment speechless in presence of her children, whose future she had just sacrificed to a delusion; her husband, on the contrary, took them on his knees, and talked to them gaily, delighted to give vent to the joy that choked him.
From this day Madame Claes shared the impassioned life of her husband.
The future of her children, their father's credit, were two motives as powerful to her as glory and science were to Claes.

After the diamonds were sold in Paris, and the purchase of chemicals was again begun, the unhappy woman never knew another hour's peace of mind.

The demon of Science and the frenzy of research which consumed her husband now agitated her own mind; she lived in a state of continual expectation, and sat half-lifeless for days together in the deep armchair, paralyzed by the very violence of her wishes, which, finding no food, like those of Balthazar, in the daily hopes of the laboratory, tormented her spirit and aggravated her doubts and fears.