As soon as Rosas returned to her, happy and stupefied at the same time, extravagantly happy in his joy, her plan of campaign was at once arranged. She did not wish to receive him in the vulgar hotel, where the clubmen had wiped their feet upon the carpets. She entreated him, since he wished to see her again, to see her at her "own house," yes, really, at her own house, in that little, unknown room, in Rue Cuvier, far from the noise of Paris and near the Botanical Garden, a kind of hidden cell into which no one entered. "No one but me," she said. The order had been given to Uncle Kayser in advance: in case Rosas should reappear, Simon was to at once inform his niece and prevent the duke from discovering Marianne's new address. And this had been done. The duke was then going to see Mademoiselle Kayser only at Rue Cuvier, after having rediscovered her at Uncle Simon's. He felt in advance a kind of gratitude to this woman who thus abandoned the secret of her soul to him; giving him to understand that it was there that she passed her days, buried in her recollections, dreaming of her departed years, of that which had been, of that which might be, a living death. Marianne had shrewdly divined the case. For this great soul, mystery added a new sentiment to the feelings that Rosas experienced. The first time that he found himself in that little abode where Simon Kayser's niece awaited him, he was deeply moved, as if he had penetrated into the pure chamber of a young girl. There, yonder, in that distant quarter, he found a peaceful retreat for one wounded by life, thirsting for solitude and passing there secret hours in the midst of loved books; in fact, the discreet dwelling of a poor teacher who had collected some choice _bibelots_ that she had found by chance. Rosas there felt himself surrounded by perfect virtue, amid the salvage of a happier past. Marianne thus became what he imagined her to be, superior to her lot, living an intellectual life, consoling herself for the mortification of existence and the hideous experiences of life by poet's dreams, in building for herself in Paris itself a sort of Thebais, where she was finally free and mistress of herself and where, when she was sad, she was not compelled to wear a mask or a false smile, and was free from all pretended gaiety. And she was so often sad! She had occasionally mentioned to Rosas the assumed name under which she lived at that place. "Mademoiselle Robert!" He had manifested surprise thereat. "Yes, I do not wish them to know anything of me, not even my name. You should understand the necessity that certain minds have for repose and forgetfulness. Did not one of your sovereigns take his repose lying in his coffin? Well! I envy him and when I have pushed the bolt of my little room in Rue Cuvier, I tremble with delight, just as if I felt my heart beating in a coffin. Do not tell any one. They would desire to know and see. People are so curious and so stupid!"