Beside this box lay two objects which Hubert had thrown there on the evening of the same day on which he had learnt his mistress's treachery: one was his ring, and the other a slender gold chain, to which hung a tiny key. He took the little hoop in his hand, and, in spite of himself, looked at the inner surface. Theresa had had a star engraved there, with the date of their stay at Folkestone. This simple token suddenly called up before Hubert an indefinite perspective of reminiscences; he could again see the door of the hotel, the staircase with its red carpet, the drawing-room in which they had dined, and the waiter who had waited on them, with his face of Britannic respectability, his shaven lip, and his over-long chin. He could hear him say: "I beg your pardon," and Theresa's smile appeared before him. What languishment swam then in her eyes--those eyes, whose green-grey shade was at such moments completely liquid--completely bathed with an entire abandonment of the inmost nature!--those eyes, wherein slumbered a sleep which seemed to invite you to be its dream! Hubert mechanically slipped the ring upon his finger, and then flung it almost angrily into the drawer, causing the metal to rebound against the wood. To open the box it was necessary to handle the chain. It was an old chain which he had from Theresa. He had given her the bracelet with the key of the apartments attached to it, and she had given him this chainlet that he might carry the key of the box at his neck. He had worn this scapulary of love for months and months, and often had he felt beneath his shirt for the tiny trinket to hurt himself a little by pressing it against his breast, and thus remind himself of the tender mystery of his dear happiness. How far away to-day was all this intoxication, ah! how far and how lost in the abyss of the past, whence there issues so frightful an odour of death! When he had raised the lid of the box he leaned upon his elbow, and, with his forehead in his hand, gazed upon what was left of his happiness, the few nothings so perfectly insignificant to anyone else, but so full of soul to him; an embroidered handkerchief, a glove, a veil, a bundle of letters, a bundle of little blue notes, placed within one another, and forming as it were a tiny book of tenderness. And the envelopes of the letters had been opened so carefully, and the paper of the blue notes torn with such precision. The slightest details reminded Hubert of the scruples of loving piety which he had felt for everything that came from his mistress. Beneath the letters and blue notes there was still a likeness of her, representing her in the costume which she had worn at Folkestone: a plain, close-fitting cloth jacket, and a projecting hat which cast a slight shadow upon the upper part of the face. She had had this portrait taken for Hubert alone, and, when giving it, she had said to him: