D'Orbec would have been glad to tarry and add a word to what he had already said, but the provost passed his arm through his, and led him away grumbling; he contented himself therefore with saluting Colombe with his wicked smile, and went out with Messire Robert. Behind them Dame Perrine entered through another door; she had heard the provost speaking in a loud voice, and guessed that he was as usual scolding his daughter. She arrived in time to receive Colombe in her arms. "O mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" sobbed the poor child, putting her hand over her eyes as if to avoid the sight of the odious D'Orbec, absent though he was. "O mon Dieu! is this to be the end? O my golden dreams! O my poor hopes! All is lost, and naught remains for me but to die!" We need not ask if this lament, added to Colombe's weakness and pallor, terrified Dame Perrine, and at the same time aroused her curiosity. As Colombe sadly needed to relieve her overburdened heart, she described to her worthy governess, weeping the while the bitterest tears she had ever shed, the interview between her father, Comte d'Orbec, and herself. Dame Perrine agreed that the suitor was not young or handsome, but as the worst misfortune, in her opinion, that could happen to a woman was to remain single, she insisted that it was better, when all was said, to have an old and ugly, but wealthy and influential husband, than none at all. But this doctrine was so offensive to Colombe's heart, that she withdrew to her own room, leaving Dame Perrine, whose imagination was most active, to build innumerable castles in the air in anticipation of the day when she should rise from the rank of Mademoiselle Colombe's governess to that of Comtesse d'Orbec's _dame de compagnie_. Meanwhile the provost and the count were beginning their tour of inspection of the Grand-Nesle, as Dame Perrine and Ascanio had done an hour earlier. Curious results would follow if walls, which are commonly supposed to have ears, had also eyes and a tongue, and could repeat to those who enter what they have seen and heard on the part of those who have gone before. But as the walls held their peace, and simply looked at the provost and the treasurer, laughing perhaps, after the manner of walls, it was the treasurer who spoke.