Maurice pushed open the little door of the alley, to enter unceremoniously through the garden; as of old, the door opening rang a little bell which indicated the arrival of Maurice.
Geneviève, who had stationed herself behind the closed window, started, and let fall the curtain she had drawn on one side.
The first sensation experienced by Maurice on entering his friend's house was disappointment. Not only was Geneviève absent from the window on the ground-floor, but on entering the little salon where he had uttered his last adieu, he found her not, and was compelled to announce himself, as if an absence of three weeks' duration had transformed him into a stranger. His heart was oppressed.
It was Dixmer whom Maurice first saw. He came forward, and embraced him with exclamations of joy.
Geneviève then came down. She had tried in vain to restore some color to her pallid cheek; but before she had proceeded twenty steps the blood receded to her heart.
Maurice saw Geneviève appear in the shadow of the door; he advanced toward her smiling, intending to kiss her hand, and then only perceived how sadly she was changed. She on her part noticed with anxiety the attenuated frame of Maurice, and his fevered look of wild excitement.
"You are here then, sir," said she, in a voice whose emotion she could not subdue.
She had determined to address him with perfect indifference.
"Good-day, Citizen Maurice; why have your visits been so rare of late?"
This fickleness appeared more strange still to Maurice, and now what a shadow was cast upon all!