If, hereafter, you
should renounce your present indifference to those duties, we will then
see."

"Madame," said Mother Bunch, her heart swollen with tears, for she
was thus forced to abandon a cheering hope, "I beg pardon for having
detained you so long--for nothing."

"It is I, my dear daughter, who regret not to be able to attach you
to the institution; but I am not altogether hopeless, that a person,
already so worthy of interest, will one day deserve by her piety the
lasting support of religious people. Adieu, my dear daughter! go in
peace, and may God be merciful to you, until the day that you return
with your whole heart to Him!"

So saying, the superior rose, and conducted her visitor to the door,
with all the forms of the most maternal kindness. At the moment she
crossed the threshold, she said to her: "Follow the passage, go down
a few steps, and knock at the second door on the right hand. It is the
press-room, and there you will find Florine. She will show you the way
out. Adieu, my dear daughter!"

As soon as Mother Bunch had left the presence of the superior, her
tears, until now restrained, gushed forth abundantly. Not wishing to
appear before Florine and the nuns in this state, she stopped a moment
at one of the windows to dry her eyes. As she looked mechanically
towards the windows of the next house, where she fancied she had seen
Adrienne de Cardoville, she beheld the latter come from a door in the
building, and advance rapidly towards the open paling that separated the
two gardens. At the same instant, and to her great astonishment, Mother
Bunch saw one of the two sisters whose disappearance had caused the
despair of Dagobert, with pale and dejected countenance, approach the
fence that separated her from Mdlle. de Cardoville, trembling with fear
and anxiety, as though she dreaded to be discovered.

CHAPTER VIII. MOTHER BUNCH AND MDLLE. DE CARDOVILLE.

Agitated, attentive, uneasy, leaning from one of the convent-windows,
the work-girl followed with her eyes the movements of Mdlle. de
Cardoville and Rose Simon, whom she so little expected to find together
in such a place. The orphan, approaching close to the fence, which
separated the nunnery-garden from that of Dr. Baleinier's asylum, spoke
a few words to Adrienne, whose features at once expressed astonishment,
indignation, and pity. At this juncture, a nun came running, and
looking right and left, as though anxiously seeking for some one;