“Does that name tell you nothing? I thought that Jacques, who confides in you, would have told you that as well. Well”—she dropped her voice still lower, “that is where we have our place of meeting. When he became my lover, I should so much have liked to have belonged to him at his own place, among the objects in the midst of which he lived, so that at every minute, every second, these mute witnesses of our happiness would recall me to his memory! He did not wish it to be so. I understand the reason to-day; he was already thinking of the rupture. At that time I believed everything he told me, and did everything he asked me to do. He assured me that the rooms in the Rue Nouvelle had been fitted up by him for me alone, and that he had put there the old furniture from the room in which he wrote his early books: the room he lived in before moving to the Place Delaborde. How stupid I was! How stupid I was! But it is abominable to lie to a poor girl who has only her heart, who surrenders it entirely as well as her person and would despise herself for any distrust as if it were a crime! Ah! it is very easy to deceive any one who surrenders herself like that.” “But are you sure he deceived you?” I asked. “Am I sure of it? You too—-” she replied in tones of passionate irony. “Besides, I defy you to defend him when you hear the whole story. I was, as I have just told you, near the Rue Nouvelle with my dress torn. I must add, too, that in my foolishness I had left all sorts of little things belonging to me in the rooms there, even needles and silk. It had been one of my dreams, too, that this place might become a beloved refuge for both of us, where Jacques would work at some beautiful love-drama, written near me and for me, while I should be there to employ myself—as his wife! It occurred to me to go there and mend my torn flounce. I want you to believe me when I swear to you that there was no idea of spying mixed up in my plan.” “I know it,” I replied to her, and to spare her the details of a confidence which I saw caused her great physical suffering, I asked her: “And you found the room in disorder as you told me?”