“‘Well, George, how much longer are you going to keep me?’

   “Dufilleul suddenly lost countenance and dropped Mademoiselle
   Charnot’s hand.

“The young girl bent over the banisters, and saw, at the bottom of the staircase, exactly underneath her, a woman looking up, with head thrown back and mouth still half-opened.  Their eyes met.  Jeanne at once turned away her gaze.

   “Then, turning to Madame Plumet, who leaned motionless against the
   wall: 

   “‘Come, Madame,’ she said, ‘we must go and choose a hat.’  And she
   closed the dressmaker’s door behind her.

“This, my friend, is the true account of what happened in the Rue Hautefeuille.  I learned the details from Madame Plumet in person, who could not contain herself for joy as she described the success of her conspiracy, and how her little hand had guided old Dame Fortune’s.  For, as you will doubtless have guessed, the meeting between Jeanne and her lover, so dreaded by the framemaker, had been arranged by Madame Plumet unknown to all, and the damning inscription was also in her handwriting.

“I need not add that Mademoiselle Charnot, upset by the scene, had a momentary attack of faintness.  However, she soon regained her usual firm and dignified demeanor, which seems to show that she is a woman of energy.

“But the interest of the story does not cease here.  I think the betrothal is definitely at an end.  A betrothal is always a difficult thing to renew, and after the publicity which attended the rupture of this one, I do not see how they can make it up again.  One thing I feel sure of is, that Mademoiselle Jeanne Charnot will never change her name to Madame Dufilleul.

“Do not, however, exaggerate your own chances.  They will be less than you think for some time yet.  I do not believe that a young girl who has thus been wounded and deceived can forget all at once.  There is even the possibility of her never forgetting—­of living with her sorrow, preferring certain peace of mind, and the simple joys of filial devotion, to all those dreams of married life by which so many simple-hearted girls have been cruelly taken in.

“In any case do not think of returning yet, for I know you are
capable of any imprudence.  Stay where you are, examine your
documents, and wait.

“My mother and I are passing through a bitter trial.  She is ill, I
may say seriously ill.  I would sooner bear the illness than my
present anxiety.

“Your friend,

“SylvestreLampron.

“P.  S.—­Just as I was about to fasten up this letter, I got a note
from Madame Plumet to tell me that Monsieur and Mademoiselle Charnot
have left Paris.  She does not know where they have gone.”

I became completely absorbed over this letter.  Some passages I read a second time; and the state of agitation into which it threw me did not at once pass away.  I remained for an indefinite time without a notion of what was going on around me, entirely wrapped up in the past or the future.