ut his purse to pay
Adelaide; but carried away by his poignant thoughts, he laid it on the
table, falling into a reverie of brief duration; then, ashamed of his
silence, he rose, answered some commonplace question from Madame de
Rouville, and went close up to her to examine the withered features
while he was talking to her.

He went away, racked by a thousand doubts. He had gone down but a few
steps when he turned back to fetch the forgotten purse.

"I left my purse here!" he said to the young girl.

"No," she said, reddening.

"I thought it was there," and he pointed to the card-table. Not finding
it, in his shame for Adelaide and the Baroness, he looked at them with
a blank amazement that made them laugh, turned pale, felt his waistcoat,
and said, "I must have made a mistake. I have it somewhere no doubt."

In one end of the purse there were fifteen louis d'or, and in the other
some small change. The theft was so flagrant, and denied with such
effrontery, that Hippolyte no longer felt a doubt as to his neighbors'
morals. He stood still on the stairs, and got down with some difficulty;
his knees shook, he felt dizzy, he was in a cold sweat, he shivered, and
found himself unable to walk, struggling, as he was, with the agonizing
shock caused by the destruction of all his hopes. And at this moment
he found lurking in his memory a number of observations, trifling in
themselves, but which corroborated his frightful suspicions, and which,
by proving the certainty of this last incident, opened his eyes as to
the character and life of these two women.

Had they really waited till the portrait was given them before robbing
him of his purse? In such a combination the theft was even more
odious. The painter recollected that for the last two or three
evenings Adelaide, while seeming to examine with a girl's curiosity the
particular stitch of the worn silk netting, was probably counting the
coins in the purse, while making some light jests, quite innocent in
appearance, but no doubt with the object of watching for a moment when
the sum was worth stealing.

"The old admiral has perhaps good reasons for not marrying Adelaide, and
so the Baroness has tried----"

But at this hypothesis he checked himself, not finishing his thought,
which was contradicted by a very just reflection, "If the Baroness
hopes to get me to marry her daughter," thought he, "they would not have
robbed me."

Then, clinging to his illusions, to the lo