reached the spot from which, the day before, he had seen Beatrix
watching for him at the window, he saw Camille, who instantly ran down
to him. She met him at the foot of the staircase and told the cruel
truth in one word,--

"Gone!"

"Beatrix?" asked Calyste, thunderstruck.

"You have been duped by Conti; you told me nothing, and I could do
nothing for you."

She led the poor fellow to her little salon, where he flung himself on
the divan where he had so often seen the marquise, and burst into
tears. Felicite smoked her hookah and said nothing, knowing well that
no words or thoughts are capable of arresting the first anguish of
such pain, which is always deaf and dumb. Calyste, unable even to
think, much less to choose a course, sat there all day in a state of
complete torpidity. Just before dinner was served, Camille tried to
say a few words, after begging him, very earnestly, to listen to her.

"Friend," she said, "you caused me the bitterest suffering, and I had
not, like you, a beautiful young life before me in which to heal
myself. For me, life has no longer any spring, nor my soul a love. So,
to find consolation, I have had to look above. Here, in this room, the
day before Beatrix came here, I drew you her portrait; I did not do
her injustice, or you might have thought me jealous. I wanted you to
know her as she is, for that would have kept you safe. Listen now to
the full truth. Madame de Rochefide is wholly unworthy of you. The
scandal of her fall was not necessary; she did the thing deliberately