The order given by AdÉonne to her femme de chambre had been so scrupulously observed that up to ten o’clock on the ensuing morning nobody had succeeded in gaining admittance to the boudoir of the comÉdienne.

Silence and obscurity reigned in the apartment. Long after the sun had risen, one might have supposed that the night continued, but for the gleams of light that came through the slight apertures between the curtains of the windows.

At length, AdÉonne, in the same attire she had worn on the previous evening, opened, with extreme caution, the door which led from her chamber to the saloon. She paused at each creak of the lock. Closing the door with the same care, she traversed, with the lightness of a sylph, the two rooms which separated her boudoir from the dining-room. She advanced so noiselessly that her femme de chambre, who was writing to her lover,—a dragoon of the third regiment,—did not hear her approach.

“What are you doing there, Jenny?” inquired AdÉonne, in a low voice.

“Madame may see for herself,” replied the girl, quite embarrassed. “I am writing to my cousin.”

“To your lover. What does he do?”

“He is a soldier. We are going to be married.”

“Why does he not come to see you?”

“Madame has ordered me not to receive anybody.”

“I will permit you now.”

“Madame is very kind.”

“Soldiers are always honest fellows,” added the cantatrice, as a reason for making the concession.

“Madame may be sure that he comes with the best motives.”

“That is a matter of indifference to me. Get breakfast immediately, and without noise.”

AdÉonne returned to her boudoir, and applied herself to arranging her somewhat disordered tresses. When she had succeeded in giving them the desired contour, she remained pensive, her face supported by her fair hand. Two or three times she arose as if to go to her chamber. Once her delicate fingers even touched the door-knob; but she returned and seated herself again, as though she could not decide how to proceed. A slight rustle caused her to start. She listened attentively. Her bosom heaved with sudden agitation, and a deadly pallor spread over her countenance. Eusebe partially opened the door, and, upon perceiving AdÉonne, remained motionless.

“I thought I had been dreaming,” said the provincial.

AdÉonne threw herself upon his neck, and held him long in her embrace.

“Come, tell me that you love me, my dear Eusebe,” she murmured, leading him to the divan; “or, no——tell me nothing. Let me look at you. Yes: it is, indeed, you. How handsome you are! Say that you will love me always!”

“I will,” replied Eusebe. “I would say many things, if I only knew how; but I cannot find words. I am so ignorant! But I love you very dearly. I am happy beyond expression.”

“Listen, my good angel,” she said. “We will never separate. Shall it not be so? You have nothing to do: you have told me so already. We will never separate. If you would not remain here, I will follow wherever you wish to go. If you desire it, I will quit the theatre,—every thing.”

“I do not wish you to make any sacrifice for me. That is not necessary to my happiness.”

“No sacrifice! I have never clung to any thing, for I have never had any thing to love: now I must cling to you, for I love you. I have never had but one dream, and that was to be loved as you love me. I believed that I should never be thus blessed. I was wrong: was I not?”

“Like you, I have a full heart,” replied Eusebe. “I have no words to express all I feel.”

“This love, too, will render me good, as well as happy,” said AdÉonne. “I have told my maid that she could receive her lover: this was prompted by the new feelings kindled in my heart. Thus good often results from intentions that are evil. If your friends had not told you that I was a worthless creature, you would not have ventured to visit me. If you had not come, I should never have loved anybody. Do not you believe in a good and overruling Providence, my dear Eusebe?”

“When I was a child, my mother taught me to pray. Later in life, my father told me that if any man believed in God, he would do many things of which he would not otherwise be capable.”

“Your father, it would seem, is a queer man. But no matter. I love him because he is your father. He wishes you to be instructed: he is right. I will teach you life as it is. I know it thoroughly. I have been so unfortunate! We women are wiser than you men: we know every thing without the process of learning. When I think of your anxiety to distinguish the false from the true, I could laugh, if I did not love you so dearly. There is nothing true, my dear Eusebe, but love!”