"One day he came to her presence, haggard of look, in a state of desperation, scarcely worse than the one over which she herself had but so recently triumphed. The girl had sent him back the half-dozen letters which he had written to her in the twelvemonth since they were separated, and the tiny collection of ribbons and flowers and other tokens with which innocent love tries to prove to itself its own fabulous fairylike existence. I know not, nor does it matter, how she had heard the story of his connection with Claudine; not of course, the true story, but a caricature, such as the clumsy hands of one's own good friends and the subtle hands of one's foes are equally able to sketch and fill in with revolting effectiveness. Anyhow, the young lady had made up her mind, and as she belonged to those energetic characters that cling tenaciously to their errors, things really looked desperate for Claudine's youthful friend. Every attempt on his part to bring an understanding about was abruptly refused; the poor fellow at last was in downright despair; he told his sorrows to Claudine, who told him that she would bring him back the loved one whom, for her sake, he had lost; he looked at her with an incredulous smile. How was she--she particularly--to manage that? "But she had never yet let herself be baulked by difficulties if she really cared to have her own way, even though, it might have been but a whim. And now the noblest impulse that can fill a woman's heart urged her to energetic action. Above all, she had to prove to herself, and to those to whom she had so greatly boasted, that, though she had become unfaithful to her programme, and had not guarded herself against a passionate attachment--which she called the only real one of all her life--she yet possessed the force to subdue this passion, and to re-conquer her own peace of heart. Only personal interference on her part could now bring them to the wished-for goal; but that alone would not suffice; the friend, too, for whose sake the youth had sacrificed himself, must needs come forward. That, of course, would completely put an end to the secrecy of their connection, and this just at the moment when the lawsuit was at last about to be settled, and when so much depended upon having the veil drawn as closely as possible. For herself no such consideration existed; but she was by no means sure that her friend, who, of course, did not know her real motives, and could never be allowed to know them, and who equally, of course, took things much more coolly, thought the same; nor did she know at all whether the young man would accept the sacrifice. So it became necessary to create a situation, which should not leave either of them a choice, whether they cared to join or not; and whilst she was cudgelling her brain how to bring such a situation about, an unprecedentedly lucky accident had already arranged everything according to her wishes, nay, far beyond