No sooner had I awakened from this painful sleep than an idea took possession of me. Perhaps this visit to Tournade on the previous evening had not been followed by a irreparable lapse? Is it not an every-day occurrence for a woman to accept an appointment, keep it, and at the last moment be seized with a feeling of revolt, defend her person with fury and go away, having protected herself with an energy as mad as her inconsistent conduct. Why had I not admitted that hypothesis the previous evening, and why did I admit it now? I had no other reason than this dream. It was enough to make me get up hastily at eight o’clock and hurry to the house in the Rue de la Barouillére. Happily or unhappily, for a little uncertainty at times means a little hope, at the moment I knocked at the lodge window to ask if, in spite of the early hour, Mademoiselle Favier was at home, I saw in the lodge a servant who had several times accompanied her to my studio. This woman had opened the door to me on my first visit. She had been present at Camille’s birth, as I knew, and was her confidant. As soon as she caught sight of me she ran out of the lodge with a haste which redoubled my fears. “Ah! M. La Croix,” she said as she pulled me towards the stairs so as not to be overheard, “have you come to see mademoiselle?” “Has she returned?” I cried. Suddenly I realized by a glance at the servant’s anxious face that her question was a pious fiction. Camille had not returned. My exclamation revealed to my questioner the fact that I knew something, and she at once began to interrogate me. Her questions served to inform me. “Listen, M. La Croix,” she said anxiously, as she clasped her rough and misshapen servant’s hands which trembled a little. “If you know where she is, I ask you in the name of your mother, go and find her. Since the coachman brought a message from her last evening that she would not return, madam has been mad with grief. I never saw her like it before, not even when we found her husband with a bullet in his forehead. She does nothing but weep and say to me: “I don’t want ever to see her again. I will turn her out if she comes back.” She says that; but if Camille returns I am sure she will forgive her. Do you understand that, M. La Croix? A child like her, modest and sweet, who never allowed any one to approach her! We used to say, madam and I, that she would marry so well, like that singer who became a marquise! No, I cannot believe that she has gone astray! M. La Croix, you who are so good, tell me what you know. I am not like some people. I have brought her up since she was little, and it was on her account that I did not leave madam when the crash came. But don’t let the porter see me talking to you for so long. I have already had some difficulty in explaining why Camille did not come home last night.”