Poor Laurence, when she was left alone by Hector’s departure to the Faubourg St. Germain, on receiving M. Lecoq’s letter, began to reflect upon the events of the past year.  How unlooked-for and rapidly succeeding they had been!  It seemed to her that she had been whirled along in a tempest, without a second to think or act freely.  She asked herself if she were not a prey to some hideous nightmare, and if she should not presently awake in her pretty maidenly chamber at Orcival.  Was it really she who was there in a strange house, dead to everyone, leaving behind a withered memory, reduced to live under a false name, without family or friends henceforth, or anyone in the world to help her feebleness, at the mercy of a fugitive like herself, who was free to break to-morrow the bonds of caprice which to-day bound him to her?  Was it she, too, who was about to become a mother, and found herself suffering from the excessive misery of blushing for that maternity which is the pride of pure young wives?  A thousand memories of her past life flocked through her brain and cruelly revived her despair.  Her heart sank as she thought of her old friendships, of her mother, her sister, the pride of her innocence, and the pure joys of the home fireside.

As she half reclined on a divan in Hector’s library, she wept freely.  She bewailed her life, broken at twenty, her lost youth, her vanished, once radiant hopes, the world’s esteem, and her own self-respect, which she should never recover.

Of a sudden the door was abruptly opened.

Laurence thought it was Hector returned, and she hastily rose, passing her handkerchief across her face to try to conceal her tears.

A man whom she did not know stood upon the threshold, respectfully bowing.  She was afraid, for Tremorel had said to her many times within the past two days, “We are pursued; let us hide well;” and though it seemed to her that she had nothing to fear, she trembled without knowing why.

“Who are you?” she asked, haughtily, “and who has admitted you here?  What do you want?”

M. Lecoq left nothing to chance or inspiration; he foresaw everything, and regulated affairs in real life as he would the scenes in a theatre.  He expected this very natural indignation and these questions, and was prepared for them.  The only reply he made was to step one side, thus revealing M. Plantat behind him.

Laurence was so much overcome on recognizing her old friend, that, in spite of her resolution, she came near falling.

“You!” she stammered; “you!”

The old justice was, if possible, more agitated than Laurence.  Was that really his Laurence there before him?  Grief had done its work so well that she seemed old.

“Why did you seek for me?” she resumed.  “Why add another grief to my life?  Ah, I told Hector that the letter he dictated to me would not be believed.  There are misfortunes for which death is the only refuge.”