, sir."

"When?"

"An hour after you."

"She left no word for me?"

"Nothing."

Nanine left me.

Perhaps she had some suspicion or other, I thought, and went to Paris
to make sure that my visit to my father was not an excuse for a day
off. Perhaps Prudence wrote to her about something important. I said to
myself when I was alone; but I saw Prudence; she said nothing to make me
suppose that she had written to Marguerite.

All at once I remembered Mme. Duvernoy's question, "Isn't she coming
to-day?" when I had said that Marguerite was ill. I remembered at the
same time how embarrassed Prudence had appeared when I looked at
her after this remark, which seemed to indicate an appointment. I
remembered, too, Marguerite's tears all day long, which my father's
kind reception had rather put out of my mind. From this moment all the
incidents grouped themselves about my first suspicion, and fixed it so
firmly in my mind that everything served to confirm it, even my father's
kindness.

Marguerite had almost insisted on my going to Paris; she had pretended
to be calmer when I had proposed staying with her. Had I fallen into
some trap? Was Marguerite deceiving me? Had she counted on being back
in time for me not to perceive her absence, and had she been detained by
chance? Why had she said nothing to Nanine, or why had she not written?
What was the meaning of those tears, this absence, this mystery?

That is what I asked myself in affright, as I stood in the vacant room,
gazing at the clock, which pointed to midnight, and seemed to say to me
that it was too late to hope for my mistress's return. Yet, after all
the arrangements we had just made, after the sacrifices that had been
offered and accepted, was it likely that she was deceiving me? No. I
tried to get rid of my first supposition.

Probably she had found a purchaser for her furniture, and she had
gone to Paris to conclude the bargain. She did not wish to tell me
beforehand, for she knew that, though I had consented to it, the sale,
so necessary to our future happiness, was painful to me, and she feared
to wound my self-respect in speaking to me about it. She would rather
not see me till the whole thing was done, and that was evidently why
Prudence was expecting her when she let out the secret. Marguerite could
not finish the whole business to-day, and was staying the night with
Prudence, or perhaps she would come even now, for she must know bow
anxious I should b