They talked until midnight, recalling the most trivial details, indulging in innumerable conjectures concerning the marquis's conduct toward Antoine in the future. As it was too late for Jean Jappeloup to return to his village, he slept in Châteaubrun. Monsieur Antoine fell asleep to dream of happiness; Janille, of wealth. She had forgotten Emile and her recent disappointment. "That will all pass by," she said, "and the hundred thousand francs will remain. We shall have no more to do with your Galuchets, when we are possessed of a tidy little fortune in the country." And she ran over in her mind all the young rustics in the neighborhood who might aspire to Gilberte's hand. "If a mere plebeian offers himself," she thought, "he must have at least two hundred thousand francs' worth of land."--And she placed under her bolster the key to the cupboard in which she had locked Gilberte's _pot au lait_. Gilberte, yielding to extreme fatigue, fell asleep at last, after forming a momentous resolution. The next morning she talked a long while with her father, without Janille's knowledge, then asked the latter to allow her to carry Monsieur de Boisguilbault's presents to her own room, so that she could look at them at her leisure. The good woman handed them to her unsuspectingly, for Gilberte felt obliged on this occasion to resort to dissimulation with her obstinate governess. Then she wrote a letter which she showed to her father. "What you are doing is all right, my child," he said, with a profound sigh, "but look out for Janille when she finds it out!" "Don't you be afraid, dear father," was the reply; "we won't tell her that I took you into my confidence, and all her anger will fall on me alone." "Now," said Monsieur Antoine, "we must wait for our friend Jean, for we can't trust things of such value to a hare-brained chap like Master Charasson." Gilberte awaited the carpenter's return with the more impatience because she expected to receive news of Emile from him. She had no idea that Emile was ill. But at the very thought of his mental suffering she was so beset by anxiety that she could not think of herself; and these days of separation, which she had thought that she could endure so courageously, seemed to her so long and so depressing that she asked herself in dismay how Emile could endure them. She flattered herself that he would find a way to write to her, although she would not authorize him to do it; or, at least, that the carpenter would repeat their conversation to her, to the most unimportant words.