'You can see that,' he replied, 'I'm getting ready to go.' 'To go!' 'Yes,' he rejoined; 'I think of going to Italy.' 'When?' asked Emilie in astonishment. 'Most probably the day after to-morrow.' He meant what he said. He had calculated that Suzanne would require about twenty-four hours for her preparations if she decided to go. If she decided to go! The mere possibility of his attempt failing caused him such pain that he did not care to dwell upon it. Since the scene at the Opera, when he had left her pale and crushed in the semi-darkness of the private box, he had imposed almost superhuman restraint upon himself by stemming the torrent of passionate longing within him. The hope so suddenly conceived was a kind of breach through which the torrent swept with such unrestrained and violent fury that it overturned and carried away all before it. In his madness René even went so far as to look at some trunks in two or three shops in the Rue de la Paix. Since the departure from Vouziers no one in the Vincy family had left Paris, even for twenty-four hours. The only articles in the Rue Coëtlogon that could hold anything were two old worm-eaten coffers and three leather portmanteaus falling to pieces from age. These preparations, which lent an appearance of reality to the poet's dreams, cheated the fever of suspense until the hour of his appointment. The illusion in which he had indulged had been so strong that he did not realise his actual position until he stood in the little _salon_ in the Rue Murillo. Nothing had yet been achieved. 'Madame will be here in a moment,' the servant had said, leaving him alone in the room. He had not been there since the day when he read his choicest verses to her whom he then regarded as a Madonna. Why did she keep him waiting for full five minutes in this place that must awaken in him so many recollections? Was it yet another ruse on her part? Recollections did indeed rise up before him, but produced an effect totally different from that anticipated by Suzanne. The elegance of these surroundings, once so much admired, now inspired him with horror. An atmosphere of infamy seemed to hang over all these objects, many of which had no doubt been paid for by Desforges. The horror he felt intensified his desire to drag the woman he loved away from her misery, and when she appeared on the threshold it was not love that she read in his eyes, but a fixed and determined look of resolve.