“Oh! It is very simple. In this young Marcel I found a love and affection at once simple and disinterested, quite refreshing. It seemed as though I were in a thirsty desert, and came upon a limpid spring, at which no one had drunk previously. I stopped at the edge, looked into the crystal water, and the reflected image was so different from myself, that I stood there astonished and delighted. I thought I was about to find tranquil rest, and a delightful regeneration, and cease being the Sophia who had gone through so many adventures, to become a simple harmless woman in the eyes of a love-stricken swain. Perhaps my mouth would forget its lying, and my eyes their deceit and fascination! What a dream! And how near realization! What unexpected happiness, ruined in a moment by your reappearance. Ah! I have cursed you, Cesare, and Hans as well! But what can I do, how can I tear myself away from my destiny? It was the height of madness for me to think that a sincere love could unfold in my heart, as though a wild floweret of the open fields could spring up in a marsh! Come, let us think no more of all this. Society shall pay the price of my disillusion!” “Now you are speaking sensibly. But all you have been telling me is most deplorably romantic. To think of your settling down in a village like the Dame aux Camelias to live on new-laid eggs with Armand Duval! How ridiculous! Ah! Here is Milona with your hat and cloak.” “Ask the coachman to mount the luggage.” Sophia, apparently impassive, watched her trunk and bags change position. As Cesare stood at the garden-gate calling her, she looked around for the last time, raised her hands to her lips, and to all she associated with Marcel—green trees, forms on which they had sat, birds that had sung above their heads, sky which had shone on their happiness—she sent a rapid kiss. “Are you ready?” asked the Italian. “Here I am.” “We will not leave by Ars, the town is in too great a commotion. This worthy coachman will drive us to Saint-Savine, where we will take the express for Paris.” “As you like.” “Come along, then, quick!” She mounted the open carriage. Milona took up a position opposite her mistress. A lash of the whip, a sound of bells, and at the turn of the road everything was out of view. It was four o’clock when Uncle Graff, after arranging for the search for Laforêt, and giving orders for the management of the works, in short arranging for whatever was absolutely pressing, came for his nephew to go with him to the Villa de la Cavée. Baudoin, with a trusty revolver in his pocket, went on in front as a scout. Marcel and his uncle followed, a hundred yards behind. The excitement of the struggle and danger was now past, and they were beginning to examine the position more coolly.