Knowing the place where she should find the manuscript, she went straight to the desk, took out the box, and then, drawing from her pocket a sealed letter, prepared to leave it in the place of the manuscript, which she was to carry away with her.  So doing, she trembled so much, that she was obliged to support herself an instant by the table.  Every good sentiment was not extinct in Florine’s heart; she obeyed passively the orders she received, but she felt painfully how horrible and infamous was her conduct.  If only herself had been concerned, she would no doubt have had the courage to risk all, rather than submit to this odious despotism; but unfortunately, it was not so, and her ruin would have caused the mortal despair of another person whom she loved better than life itself.  She resigned herself, therefore, not without cruel anguish, to abominable treachery.

Though she hardly ever knew for what end she acted, and this was particularly the case with regard to the abstraction of the journal, she foresaw vaguely, that the substitution of this sealed letter for the manuscript would have fatal consequences for Mother Bunch, for she remembered Rodin’s declaration, that “it was time to finish with the young sempstress.”

What did he mean by those words?  How would the letter that she was charged to put in the place of the diary, contribute to bring about this result? she did not know—­but she understood that the clear-sighted devotion of the hunchback justly alarmed the enemies of Mdlle. de Cardoville, and that she (Florine) herself daily risked having her perfidy detected by the young needlewoman.  This last fear put an end to the hesitations of Florine; she placed the letter behind the box, and, hiding the manuscript under her apron, cautiously withdrew from the chamber.

CHAPTER XLVII.

The diary continued.

Returned into her own room, some hours after she had concealed there the manuscript abstracted from Mother Bunch’s apartment, Florine yielded to her curiosity, and determined to look through it.  She soon felt a growing interest, an involuntary emotion, as she read more of these private thoughts of the young sempstress.  Among many pieces of verse, which all breathed a passionate love for Agricola—­a love so deep, simple, and sincere, that Florine was touched by it, and forgot the author’s deformity—­among many pieces of verse, we say, were divers other fragments, thoughts, and narratives, relating to a variety of facts.  We shall quote some of them, in order to explain the profound impression that their perusal made upon Florine.

Fragments from the Diary.