ve that already had taken such
deep root, he tried to find a justification in some accident. "The purse
must have fallen on the floor," said he to himself, "or I left it lying
on my chair. Or perhaps I have it about me--I am so absent-minded!"
He searched himself with hurried movements, but did not find the
ill-starred purse. His memory cruelly retraced the fatal truth, minute
by minute. He distinctly saw the purse lying on the green cloth; but
then, doubtful no longer, he excused Adelaide, telling himself that
persons in misfortune should not be so hastily condemned. There was, of
course, some secret behind this apparently degrading action. He would
not admit that that proud and noble face was a lie.

At the same time the wretched rooms rose before him, denuded of the
poetry of love which beautifies everything; he saw them dirty and faded,
regarding them as emblematic of an inner life devoid of honor, idle and
vicious. Are not our feelings written, as it were, on the things about
us?

Next morning he rose, not having slept. The heartache, that terrible
malady of the soul, had made rapid inroads. To lose the bliss we dreamed
of, to renounce our whole future, is a keener pang than that caused by
the loss of known happiness, however complete it may have been; for
is not Hope better than Memory? The thoughts into which our spirit is
suddenly plunged are like a shoreless sea, in which we may swim for
a moment, but where our love is doomed to drown and die. And it is a
frightful death. Are not our feelings the most glorious part of our
life? It is this partial death which, in certain delicate or powerful
natures, leads to the terrible ruin produced by disenchantment, by hopes
and passions betrayed. Thus it was with the young painter. He went out
at a very early hour to walk under the fresh shade of the Tuileries,
absorbed in his thoughts, forgetting everything in the world.

There by chance he met one of his most intimate friends, a school-fellow
and studio-mate, with whom he had lived on better terms than with a
brother.

"Why, Hippolyte, what ails you?" asked Francois Souchet, the young
sculptor who had just won the first prize, and was soon to set out for
Italy.

"I am most unhappy," replied Hippolyte gravely.

"Nothing but a love affair can cause you grief. Money, glory,
respect--you lack nothing."

Insensibly the painter was led into confidences, and confessed his love.
The moment he mentioned the Rue de Suresn