an appetite. It is long since
madame ate so heartily."

It was true; she was very hungry; with her sudden relief she had felt
her stomach empty. She experienced a feeling of intense peace and
content. After the shocks of these last two days a stillness fell upon
her spirit, her limbs relaxed and became as supple as though she had
just left a bath. The only sensation that remained to her was one of
heaviness somewhere, an indefinable load that weighed upon her.

When she returned to her bedroom her eyes were at once directed
towards the clock, the hands of which pointed to twenty-five minutes
past twelve. Juliette's assignation was for three o'clock. Two hours
and a half must still elapse. She made the reckoning mechanically.
Moreover, she was in no hurry; the hands of the clock were moving on,
and no one in the world could stop them. She left things to their own
accomplishment. A child's cap, long since begun, was lying unfinished
on the table. She took it up and began to sew at the window. The room
was plunged in unbroken silence. Jeanne had seated herself in her
usual place, but her arms hung idly beside her.

"Mamma," she said, "I cannot work; it's no fun at all."

"Well, my darling, don't do anything. Oh! wait a minute, you can
thread my needles!"

In a languid way the child silently attended to the duty assigned her.
Having carefully cut some equal lengths of cotton, she spent a long
time in finding the eyes of the needles, and was only just ready with
one of them threaded when her mother had finished with the last.

"You see," said the latter gently, "this will save time. The last of
my six little caps will be finished to-night."

She turned round to glance at the clock--ten minutes past one. Still
nearly two hours. Juliette must now be beginning to dress. Henri had
received the letter. Oh! he would certainly go. The instructions were
precise; he would find the place without delay. But it all seemed so
far off still, and she felt no emotional fever, but went on sewing
with regular stitches as industriously as a work-girl. The minutes
slipped by one by one. At last two o'clock struck.

A ring at the bell came as a surprise.

"Who can it be, mother darling?" asked Jeanne, who had jumped on her
chair. "Oh! it's you!" she continued, as Monsieur Rambaud entered the
room. "Why did you ring so loudly? You gave me quite a fright."

The worthy man was in consternation--to tell the truth, his tug at the
bell ha