Of all the old friendships that had once surrounded Clerambault, one
only remained, his friendship with Madame Mairet, whose husband had
been killed in the Argonne.
François Mairet was not quite forty years old when he met with an obscure death in the trenches. He was one of the foremost French biologists, an unpretending scholar and hard worker, a patient spirit. But celebrity was assured to him before long, though he was in no haste to welcome the meretricious charmer, as her favours have to be shared with too many wire-pullers. The silent joys that intimacy with science bestows on her elect were sufficient for him, with only one heart on earth to taste them with him. His wife shared all his thoughts. She came of a scholarly family, was rather younger than he; one of those serious, loving, weak, yet proud hearts, that must give but only give themselves once. Her existence was bound up in Mairet's interests. Perhaps she would have shared the life of another man equally well, if circumstances had been different, but she had married Mairet with everything that was his. Like many of the best of women, her intelligence was quick to understand the man whom her heart had chosen. She had begun by being his pupil, and became his partner, helping in his work and in his laboratory researches. They had no children and had every thought in common, both of them being freethinkers, with high ideals, destitute of religion, as well as of any national superstition.
In 1914 Mairet was mobilised, and went simply as a duty, without any illusions as to the cause that he was called upon to serve by the accidents of time and country. His
