eil, and her clothes were huddled on like a
beggar-woman's--"

"And she said she was ill," cried the notary; "but she has taken off her
mufflings and is just as well as she ever was."

"It is incomprehensible!" said Dumay.

"Not at all," said the notary; "it is now as clear as day."

"My child," said Madame Mignon to Modeste, as she came into the room,
followed by Butscha, "did you see a well-dressed young man at church
this morning, with a white rose in his button-hole?"

"I saw him," said Butscha quickly, perceiving by everybody's strained
attention that Modeste was likely to fall into a trap. "It was
Grindot, the famous architect, with whom the town is in treaty for the
restoration of the church. He has just come from Paris, and I met
him this morning examining the exterior as I was on my way to
Sainte-Adresse."

"Oh, an architect, was he? he puzzled me," said Modeste, for whom
Butscha had thus gained time to recover herself.

Dumay looked askance at Butscha. Modeste, fully warned, recovered her
impenetrable composure. Dumay's distrust was now thoroughly aroused, and
he resolved to go the mayor's office early in the morning and ascertain
if the architect had really been in Havre the previous day. Butscha,
on the other hand, was equally determined to go to Paris and find out
something about Canalis.

Gobenheim came to play whist, and by his presence subdued and compressed
all this fermentation of feelings. Modeste awaited her mother's bedtime
with impatience. She intended to write, but never did so except at
night. Here is the letter which love dictated to her while all the world
was sleeping:--

To Monsieur de Canalis,--Ah! my friend, my well-beloved! What
atrocious falsehoods those portraits in the shop-windows are! And
I, who made that horrible lithograph my joy!--I am humbled at the
thought of loving one so handsome. No; it is impossible that those
Parisian women are so stupid as not to have seen their dreams
fulfilled in you. You neglected! you unloved! I do not believe a
word of all that you have written me about your lonely and obscure
life, your hunger for an idol,--sought in vain until now. You have
been too well loved, monsieur; your brow, white and smooth as a
magnolia leaf, reveals it; and it is I who must be neglected,--for
who am I? Ah! why have you called me to life? I felt for a moment
as though the heavy burden of the flesh was leaving me; my soul
had broken the c