"Great Heavens!" said the Innkeeper, "you were listening." "Yes, I was listening, I heard; I will prepare the room, but it shall be for the other!" "Do you know who the other is?" "No," she said quickly. "Do you know why they are fighting?" "How should I know?" she demanded. She did know, however. However she sat mute under the gibes of the other servants. Albert had returned with his mother, who seemed gayer, happier than usual. Esperance went at once to speak to her and was enthusiastically congratulated on her superb bearing. The Countess kissed Esperance whose eyes were filling with tears, and she kissed the Countess's hands with so much emotion that the lady raised the blonde head, saying tenderly, "No, no, you must not cry! We must love each other joyfully. I have never seen my son so happy, I should be jealous if I loved him less. See, dear, I want to give you these jewels myself; I believe that they are going to suit you very well." She clasped a magnificent collar of pearls around the young girl's neck. Esperance could not refuse them. She thanked the lovely lady affectionately. "My father will tell me what to do," she thought. Lunch was an hour earlier as the fête was to begin at half-past two. "Heavens," said Mme. Styvens with perturbation, "I shall never be ready." Esperance left her, happy to escape from her torturing thoughts. "Deceit, deceit to this good woman!" Albert was waiting to lead her back. He admired his mother's gift, and spoke to her gently. "It is just the tint of your skin," he said, "that gives these pearls their beautiful lustre. They ought not to flatter themselves that it is they who embellish you!" All this was added anguish for the girl, his mother's kindness, Albert's gay confidence, and this fête which was, soon to begin, this fête where she must show herself publicly with him whom she loved so that she would die for him, with him who loved her more than life! She repulsed with horror the ideas that came crowding into her brain. If the Château should burn. If she should fall down the staircase and break a leg; if Albert should be taken ill and die within the hour.... If ... if ... and a million visions raced through her brain as she went back to the Tower of Saint Genevieve. But never once did the Duke appear as a victim of any of these misfortunes which her brain was conjecturing up so busily. Lunch was a bit disorganized. The Duke avoided looking at Esperance. The sight of that child who loved him filled him with such emotion that he was afraid of betraying himself. The Countess de Morgueil, annoyed at seeing the two men she had sought to embroil talking together in the most courteous fashion, started to sharpen her claws once more. "What a beautiful collar, Mlle. Darbois; this is the first time that you have worn it, isn't it? Count, I compliment you!"