in is a baroness now. She lives in a fine house
of her own on the other side of the river. Her husband has come back.
My goodness, he brought back thousands and thousands. They say she could
buy up all the Quartier Saint-Jacques if she liked. She gave me her
basement room for nothing, and the remainder of her lease. Ah, she's
a kind woman all the same; she is no more proud to-day than she was
yesterday."

Raphael hurried up the staircase to his garret; as he reached the last
few steps he heard the sounds of a piano. Pauline was there, simply
dressed in a cotton gown, but the way that it was made, like the gloves,
hat, and shawl that she had thrown carelessly upon the bed, revealed a
change of fortune.

"Ah, there you are!" cried Pauline, turning her head, and rising with
unconcealed delight.

Raphael went to sit beside her, flushed, confused, and happy; he looked
at her in silence.

"Why did you leave us then?" she asked, dropping her eyes as the flush
deepened on his face. "What became of you?"

"Ah, I have been very miserable, Pauline; I am very miserable still."

"Alas!" she said, filled with pitying tenderness. "I guessed your fate
yesterday when I saw you so well dressed, and apparently so wealthy; but
in reality? Eh, M. Raphael, is it as it always used to be with you?"

Valentin could not restrain the tears that sprang to his eyes.

"Pauline," he exclaimed, "I----"

He went no further, love sparkled in his eyes, and his emotion
overflowed his face.

"Oh, he loves me! he loves me!" cried Pauline.

Raphael felt himself unable to say one word; he bent his head. The young
girl took his hand at this; she pressed it as she said, half sobbing and
half laughing:--

"Rich, rich, happy and rich! Your Pauline is rich. But I? Oh, I ought
to be very poor to-day. I have said, times without number, that I would
give all the wealth upon this earth for those words, 'He loves me!' O
my Raphael! I have millions. You like luxury, you will be glad; but you
must love me and my heart besides, for there is so much love for you
in my heart. You don't know? My father has come back. I am a wealthy
heiress. Both he and my mother leave me completely free to decide my own
fate. I am free--do you understand?"

Seized with a kind of frenzy, Raphael grasped Pauline's hands and kissed
them eagerly and vehemently, with an almost convulsive caress. Pauline
drew her hands away, laid them on Raphael's shoulders, and drew him
towards h