At length the servant who had carried off Adeline returned; and the Marquis having ordered him into his chamber, asked so many questions in a breath, that the man knew not which to answer. At length he pulled a folded paper from his pocket, which he said had been dropped in the chaise by Mademoiselle Adeline, and as he thought his Lordship would like to see it, he had taken care of it. The Marquis stretched forth his hand with eagerness, and received a note addressed to Theodore. On perceiving the superscription, the agitation of jealous rage for a moment overcame him, and he held it in his hand unable to open it. He, however, broke the seal, and found it to be a note of inquiry, written by Adeline to Theodore during his illness, and which from some accident she had been prevented from sending him. The tender solicitude it expressed for his recovery stung the soul of the Marquis, and drew from him a comparison of her feelings on the illness of his rival and that of himself. She could be solicitous for his recovery, said he, but for mine she only dreads it. As if willing to prolong the pain this little billet had excited, he then read it again. Again he cursed his fate and execrated his rival. Giving himself up, as usual, to the transports of his passion, he was going to throw it from him, when his eyes caught the seal, and he looked earnestly at it: his anger seemed now to have subsided, he deposited the note carefully in his pocket-book, and was for some time lost in thought. After many days of hopes and fears, the strength of his constitution overcame his illness, and he was well enough to write several letters, one of which he immediately sent off to prepare La Motte for his reception. The same policy which had prompted him to conceal his illness from La Motte, now urged him to say what he knew would not happen, that he should reach the abbey on the day after his servant. He repeated this injunction, that Adeline should be strictly guarded, and renewed his promises of reward for the future services of La Motte. La Motte, to whom each succeeding day had brought new surprise and perplexity concerning the absence of the Marquis, received this notice with uneasiness; for he had begun to hope that the Marquis had altered his intentions concerning Adeline, being either engaged in some new adventure, or obliged to visit his estates in some distant province: he would have been willing thus to have got rid of an affair, which was to reflect so much dishonour on himself.