Certainly also (it seems to me) we may believe in the incident of the scrap of paper, handed by one of the smallest girls in the school, to Charlotte, after these two exploits of Madame Heger's diplomacy, intended to avoid the danger--_and was not the danger real?_--of an emotional scene of leave-taking, that might thwart her endeavour to get Charlotte safely out of the house, without any 'inconvenient' revelations. M. Heger may, or may not, have been as ignorant of all that was going on between his wife and 'Mees Charlotte' as Madame Heger desired him to be. But it would have been entirely like him, whether he knew what was happening or not, to wish for an emotional leave-taking with his English pupil. M. Heger liked to foster a certain amount of sensibility in his relationships with his pupils--it did not amount to more than a taste for dramatic situations where he had an interesting part to play that gave his histrionic talents a good field of exercise. But the message warning Charlotte '_that he must see her at leisure, before she left, and talk with her at length_,' appears to me just the sort of message M. Heger would have sent. And more especially he would have acted thus if _in reality he had forgotten all about Charlotte's near time of departure_ and then had suddenly remembered it, and that 'Mees' would feel hurt, and think he had behaved coldly to her. In this case he would have tried to put himself right and to persuade her that he had not forgotten at all, but had arranged a special opportunity for a long talk, etc. And Charlotte believing it all, upon the strength of this note, would have lingered on in his class-room, expecting M. Heger,--who never appeared. [Illustration: M. HEGER AT SIXTY (He was born in 1809: hence thirty-four, in 1843, when Charlotte bade him farewell)] It seems to me that, whilst it is _possible_ that Madame Heger _may_ have prevented her husband from keeping the appointment, it is also quite _possible_ that M. Heger may have again forgotten all about it? That would have been like him too,--as I shall show by and by. But what I believe to have _certainly happened is that the scene between Madame Heger and Charlotte took place just as the authoress of 'Villette' described_. That interview wears, to my mind, the stamp of truth. The last day broke. Now would he visit us. Now would he come and speak his farewell, or he would vanish mute, and be seen by us nevermore. This alternative seemed to be present in the mind of not a living creature in that school. All rose at the usual hour; all breakfasted as usual; all, without reference to, or apparent thought of, their late professor, betook themselves with wonted phlegm to their ordinary duties.