THE INQUIRY.
We can no longer leave in forgetfulness one of the principal personages of this history, he who, during the accomplishment of the various incidents of the preceding chapter had suffered most of all, and whose anxieties merit the liveliest sympathy on the part of our readers.
The sun shone gloriously in the Rue de la Monnaie, and the gossips were discoursing merrily at their doors, as if for the last ten months a mist of blood had not hung over the city, when Maurice returned home, bringing, as he had promised, the cabriolet with him. He gave the bridle of the horse to a shoeblack, on the pavement of Saint Eustache, and hastily ran upstairs, his heart filled with joy.
Love is a vivifying sentiment. It animates hearts long deadened to every other sensation; it peoples the desert; it resuscitates before the eyes the shade of the beloved one; it causes the voice which sings in the soul of the lover to display before him the entire creation illumined by the brilliant rays of hope and happiness,—at the same time it is egotistical, blinding him who loves to all but the existence of the beloved object.
Maurice neither saw these women nor listened to their commentaries; he saw only Geneviève preparing for a departure which was at last to bring them durable happiness; he heard only Geneviève singing carelessly her customary song, and this little song trilled so sweetly in his ear that he might have sworn he was listening to the varied modulations of her voice, mingled with the less harmonious sound of closing locks.
Upon the landing Maurice stopped; the door was half open; it was generally kept closed, and this circumstance surprised Maurice. He looked all around, thinking Geneviève was in the corridor. She was not there. He entered, looked in the antechamber, the dining-room, the parlor, the bed-chamber; but anteroom, parlor, and bed-chamber were all empty. He loudly called. No one replied.
The official, as he knew, had gone out. Maurice imagined that during his absence Geneviève had perhaps required some cord to fasten her trunk, or some refreshments to store in the carriage, and had gone out to purchase them. He thought it imprudent; but although every moment his anxiety increased, he as yet feared nothing serious.