One evening, as he left his studio, he saw the door of the ladies’ rooms half open. Somebody was standing in the recess of the window, and the position of the door and the staircase made it impossible that the painter should pass without seeing Adelaide. He bowed coldly, with a glance of supreme indifference; but judging of the girl’s suffering by his own, he felt an inward shudder as he reflected on the bitterness which that look and that coldness must produce in a loving heart. To crown the most delightful feast which ever brought joy to two pure souls, by eight days of disdain, of the deepest and most utter contempt!--A frightful conclusion. And perhaps the purse had been found, perhaps Adelaide had looked for her friend every evening. This simple and natural idea filled the lover with fresh remorse; he asked himself whether the proofs of attachment given him by the young girl, the delightful talks, full of the love that had so charmed him, did not deserve at least an inquiry; were not worthy of some justification. Ashamed of having resisted the promptings of his heart for a whole week, and feeling himself almost a criminal in this mental struggle, he called the same evening on Madame de Rouville. All his suspicions, all his evil thoughts vanished at the sight of the young girl, who had grown pale and thin. “Good heavens! what is the matter?” he asked her, after greeting the Baroness. Adelaide made no reply, but she gave him a look of deep melancholy, a sad, dejected look, which pained him. “You have, no doubt, been working hard,” said the old lady. “You are altered. We are the cause of your seclusion. That portrait had delayed some pictures essential to your reputation.” Hippolyte was glad to find so good an excuse for his rudeness. “Yes,” he said, “I have been very busy, but I have been suffering----” At these words Adelaide raised her head, looked at her lover, and her anxious eyes had now no hint of reproach. “You must have thought us quite indifferent to any good or ill that may befall you?” said the old lady. “I was wrong,” he replied. “Still, there are forms of pain which we know not how to confide to any one, even to a friendship of older date than that with which you honor me.” “The sincerity and strength of friendship are not to be measured by time. I have seen old friends who had not a tear to bestow on misfortune,” said the Baroness, nodding sadly. “But you--what ails you?” the young man asked Adelaide. “Oh, nothing,” replied the Baroness. “Adelaide has sat up late for some nights to finish some little piece of woman’s work, and would not listen to me when I told her that a day more or less did not matter----” Hippolyte was not listening. As he looked at these two noble, calm faces, he blushed for his suspicions, and ascribed the loss of his purse to some unknown accident.