ddered, and an
expression of bitter joy contracted her features. Resolved to go, she
made some steps towards the door, when, in passing before the fireplace,
she saw her own image in the glass, pale as death, and clothed in black;
then it struck her that she wore a dress which did not belong to her,
and she remembered a passage in the letter, which alluded to the rags
she had on before she entered that house. "True!" said she, with a heart
breaking smile, as she looked at her black garments; "they would call me
a thief."

And, taking her candle, she entered the little dressing room, and put on
again the poor, old clothes, which she had preserved as a sort of pious
remembrance of her misfortunes. Only at this instant did her tears flow
abundantly. She wept--not in sorrow at resuming the garb of misery, but
in gratitude; for all the comforts around her, to which she was about
to bid an eternal adieu, recalled to her mind at every step the delicacy
and goodness of Mdlle. de Cardoville: therefore, yielding to an almost
involuntary impulse, after she had put on her poor, old clothes, she
fell on her knees in the middle of the room, and, addressing herself
in thought to Mdlle. de Cardoville, she exclaimed, in a voice broken by
convulsive sobs: "Adieu! oh, for ever, adieu!--You, that deigned to call
me friend--and sister!"

Suddenly, she rose in alarm; she heard steps in the corridor, which led
from the garden to one of the doors of her apartment, the other door
opening into the parlor. It was Florine, who (alas! too late) was
bringing back the manuscript. Alarmed at this noise of footsteps, and
believing herself already the laughing-stock of the house. Mother Bunch
rushed from the room, hastened across the parlor, gained the court-yard,
and knocked at the window of the porter's lodge. The house-door opened,
and immediately closed upon her. And so the workgirl left Cardoville
House.

Adrienne was thus deprived of a devoted, faithful, and vigilant
guardian. Rodin was delivered from an active and sagacious antagonist,
whom he had always, with good reason, feared. Having, as we have seen,
guessed Mother Bunch's love for Agricola, and knowing her to be a
poet, the Jesuit supposed, logically enough that she must have written
secretly some verses inspired by this fatal and concealed passion. Hence
the order given to Florine, to try and discover some written evidence
of this love; hence this letter, so horribly effective in its co