She managed after breakfast to bring the children under the window of Madame Derville's room. He thought they had grown a great deal, but they had begun to look common, or else his ideas had changed. Madame de Rênal spoke to them about Julien. The elder answered in an affectionate tone and regretted his old tutor, but he found that the younger children had almost forgotten him. M. de Rênal did not go out that morning; he was going up and downstairs incessantly engaged in bargaining with some peasants to whom he was selling potatoes. Madame de Rênal did not have an instant to give to her prisoner until dinner-time. When the bell had been rung and dinner had been served, it occurred to her to steal a plate of warm soup for him. As she noiselessly approached the door of the room which he occupied, she found herself face to face with the servant who had hid the ladder in the morning. At the time he too was going noiselessly along the corridor, as though listening for something. The servant took himself off in some confusion. Madame de Rênal boldly entered Julien's room. The news of this encounter made him shudder. "You are frightened," she said to him, "but I would brave all the dangers in the world without flinching. There is only one thing I fear, and that is the moment when I shall be alone after you have left," and she left him and ran downstairs. "Ah," thought Julien ecstatically, "remorse is the only danger which this sublime soul is afraid of." At last evening came. Monsieur de Rênal went to the Casino. His wife had given out that she was suffering from an awful headache. She went to her room, hastened to dismiss Elisa and quickly got up in order to let Julien out. He was literally starving. Madame de Rênal went to the pantry to fetch some bread. Julien heard a loud cry. Madame de Rênal came back and told him that when she went to the dark pantry and got near the cupboard where they kept the bread, she had touched a woman's arm as she stretched out her hand. It was Elisa who had uttered the cry Julien had heard. "What was she doing there?" "Stealing some sweets or else spying on us," said Madame de Rênal with complete indifference, "but luckily I found a pie and a big loaf of bread." "But what have you got there?" said Julien pointing to the pockets of her apron. Madame de Rênal had forgotten that they had been filled with bread since dinner. Julien clasped her in his arms with the most lively passion. She had never seemed to him so beautiful. "I could not meet a woman of greater character even at Paris," he said confusedly to himself. She combined all the clumsiness of a woman who was but little accustomed to paying attentions of this kind, with all the genuine courage of a person who is only afraid of dangers of quite a different sphere and quite a different kind of awfulness.