"You are honest with me?"
"Perfectly."
"Then when I triumph you shall see!—and you shall see it first. I will come for you; not yet—not yet—perhaps to-morrow, perhaps next month—but I will come!" and he bowed himself out.
The faded sister was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. She had seen her brother mount the first flight and the fourth, all this by peering down between the banisters. Then he had disappeared. This, being unusual, had startled her.
"You must have stopped somewhere, Adolphe," she said, nervously.
"Yes, Louise; the painter on the floor below called me."
"Is he poor, like us?"
"Poorer. We have the light beyond. He has nothing, and never will have."
"What did he want?"