Cruelly agitated, and suffering deeply from this agitation, she tried to dissemble the impression she had received, by addressing Rodin, to apologize for having suspected him.  But the obstinate silence of the Indian redoubled the lady’s painful embarrassment.  Again raising her eyes towards the prince, to invite him to respond to her fraternal offer, she met his ardent gaze wildly fixed upon her, and she looked once more with a mixture of fear, sadness, and wounded pride; then she congratulated herself on having foreseen the inexorable necessity of keeping Djalma at a distance from her, such apprehension did this ardent and impetuous nature already inspire.  Wishing to put an end to her present painful situation, she said to Rodin, in a low and trembling voice, “Pray, sir, speak to the prince; repeat to him my offers.  I cannot remain longer.”  So saying, Adrienne turned, as if to rejoin Florine.  But, at the first step, Djalma sprang towards her with the bound of a tiger, about to be deprived of his prey.  Terrified by the expression of wild excitement which inflamed the Indian’s countenance, the young lady drew back with a loud scream.

At this, Djalma remembered himself, and all that had passed.  Pale with regret and shame, trembling, dismayed, his eyes streaming with tears, and all his features marked with an expression of the most touching despair, he fell at Adrienne’s feet, and lifting his clasped hands towards her, said in a soft, supplicating, timid voice:  “Oh, remain! remain! do not leave me.  I have waited for you so long!” To this prayer, uttered with the timid simplicity of a child, and a resignation which contrasted strangely with the savage violence that had so frightened Adrienne, she replied, as she made a sign to Florine to prepare for their departure:  “Prince, it is impossible for me to remain longer here.”

“But you will return?” said Djalma, striving to restrain his tears.  “I shall see you again?”

“Oh, no! never—­never!” said Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a failing voice.  Then, profiting by the stupor into which her answer had thrown Djalma, Adrienne disappeared rapidly behind the plants in the greenhouse.

Florine was hastening to rejoin her mistress, when, just at the moment she passed before Rodin, he said to her in a low, quick voice:  “To-morrow we must finish with the hunchback.”  Florine trembled in every limb, and, without answering Rodin, disappeared, like her mistress, behind the plants.  Broken, overpowered, Djalma remained upon his knees, with his head resting on his breast.  His countenance expressed neither rage nor excitement, but a painful stupor; he wept silently.  Seeing Rodin approach him, he rose, but with so tremulous a step, that he could hardly reach the divan, on which he sank down, hiding his face in his hands.

Then Rodin, advancing, said to him in a mild and insinuating tone:  “Alas!  I feared what has happened.  I did not wish you to see your benefactress; and if I told you she was old, do you know why, dear prince?”