d so much confidence, had
fled from her almost sisterly hospitality, without even uttering a word
of gratitude; for care had been taken not to show her the few lines
written by the poor needlewoman to her benefactress, just before her
departure.

She had only been told of the note of five hundred francs found on her
desk; and this last inexplicable circumstance had contributed to awaken
cruel suspicions in the breast of Mdlle. de Cardoville. She already felt
the fatal effects of that mistrust of everything and everybody, which
Rodin had recommended to her; and this sentiment of suspicion and
reserve had the more tendency to become powerful, that, for the first
time in her life, Mdlle. de Cardoville, until then a stranger to all
deception, had a secret to conceal--a secret, which was equally her
happiness, her shame, and her torment. Half-recumbent on her divan,
pensive and depressed, Adrienne pursued, with a mind often absent, one
of her newly purchased books. Suddenly, she uttered an exclamation of
surprise; the hand which held the book trembled like a leaf, and from
that moment she appeared to read with passionate attention and devouring
curiosity. Soon, her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm, her smile
assumed ineffable sweetness, and she seemed at once proud, happy,
delighted--but, as she turned over the last page, her countenance
expressed disappointment and chagrin. Then she recommenced this reading,
which had occasioned her such sweet emotion, and this time she read with
the most deliberate slowness, going over each page twice, and spelling,
as it were, every line, every word. From time to time, she paused,
and in a pensive mood, with her forehead leaning on her fair hand, she
seemed to reflect, in a deep reverie, on the passages she had read with
such tender and religious love. Arriving at a passage which so affected
her, that a tear started in her eye, she suddenly turned the volume,
to see on the cover the name of the author. For a few seconds, she
contemplated this name with a singular expression of gratitude, and
could not forbear raising to her rosy lips the page on which it was
printed. After reading many times over the lines with which she had
been so much struck, forgetting, no doubt, the letter in the spirit, she
began to reflect so deeply, that the book glided from her hand, and
fell upon the carpet. During the course of this reverie, the eyes of the
young girl rested, at first mechanically, upon an admirab