She remained calm, however, and self‐possessed. But the mute despair imprinted on her face as she went to and fro in the house, troubling no one with her grief, affected every beholder. She only begged to remain there that she might not have to return alone to the place where she had lived with him. From the first, Madame Dornthal had invited her to take up her residence near them, and Fleurange’s return brought her old friend to a final decision, which proved so consoling that she firmly believed it to have been in the designs of Providence. The doctor left considerable property, which now belonged entirely to his sister. All their relatives were wealthier than they, and lived in the provinces. There was nothing therefore to induce Mademoiselle Josephine to return to Paris, and she resolved to settle near her new friends, that she might be near her whom long before she had adopted in her heart. It was a formidable undertaking for a person who for forty years had led a uniform life, always in the same place, and who was no less ignorant of the world at sixty than she was at twenty years of age. But it seemed no longer difficult as soon as she again had some one to live for. As to Fleurange, she found it pleasant and beneficial to devote herself to her old friend in return, and, in acquitting herself of this new debt of gratitude, her heart gained strength for the interior struggle which had become the constant effort of her life. Notwithstanding the marriage of her two cousins, everything now resumed the aspect of the past. Clara and Julian, established in the neighborhood where the pursuits of the latter would retain him a year, did not suffer a day to pass without visiting Rosenheim. Hansfelt no longer thought of leaving his old friend, and Hilda’s calm and radiant happiness seemed to lack nothing between her husband and her father, whose case now appeared so hopeful. Clement alone was not, as formerly, a part of the regular family circle. He only came once a week—on Saturday evening—and returned to Frankfort on Monday morning as soon as it was light.