The same evening I spoke to my old patron, whom I found in the morning-room, where he sat alone and in meditation. The doors of his own study were still locked, and no one was allowed to enter there. His manner was so feverish and unnatural that I almost abandoned my project of leaving the Rue des Palmiers. "Ah!" he said, "what a terrible day--and that poor Alphonse! How did you leave him?" I thought of Alphonse as I had left him, smiling under his mourning hat-band, waving a black glove gaily to me in farewell. "Oh," I answered, "Alphonse will soon be himself again." "Ah, my friend," exclaimed the Vicomte, after a sorrowful pause. "The surprises of life are all unpleasant. Pfuit!" he spread out his hands suddenly as if indicating a quick flight, "and I lose a friend and four hundred thousand francs in the twinkling of an eye. To think that a mere shock can kill a man as it killed the poor Baron." "He had no neck, and systematically ate too much," I said. "I am now going to see if we cannot repair some of the harm that has been done." "How?" asked the old man, with all the suspicion that had recently come into his character. "I am going to look for Miste." He shook his head. "Very quixotic, but quite useless," said he; and then set himself to dissuade me from my quest with every argument that he could bring to bear upon me. Some of these, indeed, I thought he might well have omitted. "We cannot spare you at this time, when the political world is so disturbed, and internal affairs are on the brink of catastrophe. We cannot spare you, I, the Vicomtesse--Lucille. It was only last night that she was rejoicing at your presence with us in our time of trouble. I shall tell her that you wish to leave us, and she will, I am sure, dissuade you." Which threat he carried out, as will be recorded later. I was, however, fixed in my determination, and only gave way in so far as to promise to return as soon as possible. These details are recorded thus at length, as they are all links of a chain which pieced itself together later in my life. Such links there are in the story of every human existence, and no incident seems to stand quite alone. After dinner that evening I went to my own study, leaving the Vicomte to join the ladies in the drawing-room without me. So far as I was able I had arranged during the last few days the affairs which had been confidingly placed in my care, and desired to leave books and papers in such a condition that a successor could at once take up the thread of management. The Vicomte was so disturbed at the mention of my departure that the topic had been carefully avoided during dinner, though I make no doubt that he knew my purpose in refusing to go to the drawing-room. I was at work in my room--between the two tall candles--when the rustle of a woman's dress in the open doorway made me look up. Lucille had come into the room--her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed. And I knew, or thought I knew, her thoughts.