her knees in the middle of the room, and, addressing herself in
thought to Mdlle. de Cardoville, she exclaimed, in a voice broken by
convulsive sobs: "Adieu! oh, for ever, adieu!--You, that deigned to call
me friend--and sister!"

Suddenly, she rose in alarm; she heard steps in the corridor, which led
from the garden to one of the doors of her apartment, the other door
opening into the parlor. It was Florine, who (alas! too late) was
bringing back the manuscript. Alarmed at this noise of footsteps, and
believing herself already the laughing-stock of the house. Mother Bunch
rushed from the room, hastened across the parlor, gained the court-yard,
and knocked at the window of the porter's lodge. The house-door opened,
and immediately closed upon her. And so the workgirl left Cardoville
House.

Adrienne was thus deprived of a devoted, faithful, and vigilant guardian.
Rodin was delivered from an active and sagacious antagonist, whom he had
always, with good reason, feared. Having, as we have seen, guessed Mother
Bunch's love for Agricola, and knowing her to be a poet, the Jesuit
supposed, logically enough that she must have written secretly some
verses inspired by this fatal and concealed passion. Hence the order
given to Florine, to try and discover some written evidence of this love;
hence this letter, so horribly effective in its coarse ribaldry, of
which, it must be observed, Florine did not know the contents, having
received it after communicating a summary of the contents of the
manuscript, which, the first time, she had only glanced through without
taking it away. We have said, that Florine, yielding too late to a
generous repentance, had reached Mother Bunch's apartment, just as the
latter quitted the house in consternation.

Perceiving a light in the dressing-room, the waiting-maid hastened
thither. She saw upon a chair the black dress that Mother Bunch had just
taken off, and, a few steps further, the shabby little trunk, open and
empty, in which she had hitherto preserved her poor garments. Florine's
heart sank within her; she ran to the secretary; the disorder of the
card-board boxes, the note for five hundred francs left by the side of
the two lines written to Mdlle. de Cardoville, all proved that her
obedience to Rodin's orders had borne fatal fruit, and that Mother Bunch
had quitted the house for ever. Finding the uselessness of her tardy
resolution, Florine resigned herself with a sigh to the necessity of