One night, whilst passing along the corridor, I fancied I heard two voices in Sophie’s room; but instead of stopping to listen, I felt ashamed of the action which jealousy prompted me to commit, and I determined, notwithstanding the pangs I suffered, that Sophie should have no reason to suppose that I suspected anything.
My grief, undoubtedly, was great; but my pity for her was greater, and I felt that strong as my anguish was, she was preparing for herself an after day of sorrow and remorse.
From the 1st to the 15th of June, the visits of M. Malmy and M. Dampierre were more frequent than usual.
An instinctive hatred made me keep aloof from M. de Malmy; but the Count, in memory of Father Descharmes, never met me without speaking.
But, for the most part, they did not come as far as the Rue de la Basse Cour. M. de Malmy alone, and his friend the Viscount de Courtemont, went to the “Bras d’Or;” the Count de Haus stayed on the top of the Hill des Réligieuses with one of his friends, an old Chevalier of St. Louis, named the Baron de Préfontaine.
On the 20th of June, about three o’clock in the afternoon, M. Jean Baptiste arrived.
In the course of the ten months since I had last been at Varennes, he had paid two or three visits to his friends Billaud and Guillaume, and had never failed to come and see me, and to invite me to take breakfast with him, as the case might be.
This time he had a more mysterious air than usual; he engaged a private room at the Brothers Leblanc, ordered dinner for four, and asked his two friends to come and join us immediately at the “Bras d’Or.”
For some time the horizon had been lowering.