Julie returned to Paris. She found there her luxurious surroundings, her carriages, her jewels and her servants. Monsieur Antoine had looked after everything; nothing about her was changed. She paid no heed to anything. In vain did Marcel hope that she would experience a sort of satisfaction, even if it were only a matter of instinct, in returning to her ordinary surroundings. He was alarmed and almost vexed by that immovable indifference. He had notified those of her friends whom he was able to reach, in order to force her to be on her guard before them. She greeted them without warmth, and when they expressed concern at her pallor and her air of depression, she attributed everything to a cold she had taken on the journey, which had detained her in the country an unconscionably long time. It was nothing, she said. She had been much worse; she was better now. She had preferred not to write in order not to make her friends anxious. She promised to see her physician and to get well. Two days later the Baronne d'Ancourt appeared. "I did you an ill turn," she said; "I am sorry, and I have come to ask you to forgive me." "I bore you no grudge," Madame d'Estrelle replied. "Yes, I know that you are either a great philosopher or a great saint; but you are a woman all the same, my friend; you have been persecuted and you are suffering!" "I don't know what you mean." "Oh! _mon Dieu!_ I know that the persecution by your creditors has lasted long enough for you to have become used to it, but it seems that the time came when you were within an ace of losing everything. They say that you obtained another respite, but with much difficulty, and with the certainty that it was merely falling back so as to jump higher. You told Madame Desmorges that, didn't you?" "Yes, it is true. I am only here now pending a final settlement." "But you will save something?" "I have no desire to save anything that came from Monsieur d'Estrelle. It is my duty and my purpose to give up everything."