“But I know who sent them,” said Adèle. “It can only be M. Beaufrelant. He has the finest hot-houses in the district; he is mad on flowers. Madame must have seen him in church: a tall, thin man, with whiskers.” Bouquetot, Adèle’s husband, entered: “An old woman has brought this letter for madame.” Gilberte opened the envelope. It contained a thousand-franc note and a few words written in a copper-plate hand on pink note-paper: “To Mme. Armand, for her poor.” “A bank-note! It must be that moneybags of a M. le Hourteulx. Let me see the hand-writing.... Yes, that’s right; I was in service with him.... Oh, my fine fellow, if you think that, because you possess hundreds and thousands!... Not a word.... I know what’s what!” Bouquetot said to his wife: “I met Mme. Duval, the chair-attendant, in the town just now. She told me that M. Beaufrelant and M. le Hourteulx were standing by the holy-water basin in church this morning; and young Simare as well. And then the barber told me that young Simare followed madame and drove away the street-boys who ran after her.” Gilberte thought for a moment and said: “Go to Mme. de la Vaudraye, Adèle, tell her how this money and these flowers came into my hands and ask her to oblige me by returning them to the senders. But the poor must not be the losers; and here is another thousand-franc note which I beg that she will distribute as she thinks best.” That afternoon, Gilberte remained pensive. Those two presents surprised her. Her ignorance of social usages did not allow her to see any indelicacy or indiscretion in the way in which they were offered; and yet she felt that there was something that should not have been done. “What does it mean?” she wondered, with a vague anxiety. “What do they want with me?” It was the outside world trying to insinuate itself into her peaceful home, into her independent life: the world with its sordid calculations, its intrigues, its vanities, its stealthy encroachments upon those who seek solitude, its instinctive jealousy of those who are able to do without it. At nightfall, she walked to the ruined summer-house. The stranger was there, among the rocks opposite. She recovered all her serenity. And not for a second did the idea cross her mind that he might be one of the three who had forced their attentions upon her. IV AN EVENING AT MME. DE LA VAUDRAYE’S It would be wearisome to describe the long series of moves and machinations, the whole comedy of affectation and pretended solicitude which Mme. de la Vaudraye employed to induce Gilberte to come and see her. One day, at last, Gilberte promised, on the understanding that there would be no one there but the regular visitors to the house. And, in the evening, Adèle, carrying a lantern and muttering between her teeth, accompanied her through the deserted streets.