"I do not know, but the change itself is a very favourable indication. It leads me to think that Michel has at last overcome the apathy and indolence which were so fatal to his welfare, and which have caused me so much suffering."
"You reason very sensibly, madame. If Florence is no longer the indolent creature who regarded a drive as entirely too fatiguing, and the slightest pleasure trip as positive martyrdom, if the life of privation which she has led for the last four years has transformed her, how gladly will I forget and ignore the past! How happy my life may still be! But, hold, madame, what I fear above all things now, is that I shall be such a fool as to hope at all."
"Why do you say that?"
"You have some reason to hope, madame; for you, at least, have been loved, while Florence has never known a spark of love for me."
"Because there was such an utter lack of congeniality between her character and yours; but if, as we have good reason to believe, her character has been transformed by the very exigencies of the life she has been leading for the last four years, perhaps what she most disliked in you prior to that time will please her most now. Did she not tell you, in the heat of your quarrel, that she considered you one of the most generous and honourable of men?"
"Nevertheless, I dare not cherish the slightest hope, madame. Disappointment would be too hard to bear."
"Hope on, hope ever, monsieur! Disappointment, if it comes at all, will come only too soon. But to change hope into certainty, we must first penetrate the veil of mystery in which Florence and Michel have enveloped themselves. The nature of the relations existing between them once fathomed, we shall know exactly where we stand."
"I agree with you perfectly, madame, but how are we to do that?"
"By resorting to the same expedient we employed this morning; by following them, though not without exercising much greater precautions. The hour at which they leave home makes this comparatively easy, but if this mode of procedure proves a failure, we shall have to devise some other."
"Possibly it would be less likely to excite their suspicions if I followed them alone."