anding justice and revenge from Mdlle. de
Cardoville. To cause a ferment of trouble and irritation in this house,
at the moment of quitting it, would have appeared to her ingratitude
towards her benefactress. She did not seek to discover the author or
the motive of this odious robbery and insulting letter. Why should she,
resolved, as she was, to fly from the humiliations with which she was
threatened? She had a vague notion (as indeed was intended), that
this infamy might be the work of some of the servants, jealous of the
affectionate deference shown her by Mdlle. de Cardoville--and this
thought filled her with despair. Those pages--so painfully confidential,
which she would not have ventured to impart to the most tender and
indulgent mother, because, written as it were with her heart's blood,
they painted with too cruel a fidelity the thousand secret wounds of her
soul--those pages were to serve, perhaps served even now, for the jest
and laughing-stock of the lackeys of the mansion.

The money which accompanied this letter, and the insulting way in which
it was offered, rather tended to confirm her suspicions. It was intended
that the fear of misery should not be the obstacle of her leaving the
house. The workgirl's resolution was soon taken, with that calm and firm
resignation which was familiar to her. She rose, with somewhat bright
and haggard eyes, but without a tear in them. Since the day before, she
had wept too much. With a trembling, icy hand, she wrote these words
on a paper, which she left by the side of the bank-note: "May Mdlle. de
Cardoville be blessed for all that she has done for me, and forgive me
for having left her house, where I can remain no longer."

Having written this, Mother Bunch threw into the fire the infamous
letter, which seemed to burn her hands. Then, taking a last look at her
chamber, furnished so comfortably, she shuddered involuntarily as she
thought of the misery that awaited her--a misery more frightful than
that of which she had already been the victim, for Agricola's mother
had departed with Gabriel, and the unfortunate girl could no longer, as
formerly, be consoled in her distress by the almost maternal affection
of Dagobert's wife. To live alone--quite alone--with the thought that
her fatal passion for Agricola was laughed at by everybody, perhaps even
by himself--such were the future prospects of the hunchback. This future
terrified her--a dark desire crossed her mind--she shu