"And yet I rose next morning without having formed a resolution. I was not afraid for myself, for my heart could not be torn more fearfully than it had been torn the night before. I was afraid only for Leonora, that a sudden meeting might humiliate her too fearfully, might kill her perhaps. A few days passed, and I found no better plan after all than to go straight to her. My friend shook his head whenever I spoke of my project. 'But, mon cher,' he said again and again, 'don't you see that you still love her?' Was he right? I do not know. At all events, this kind of love was very different from ordinary love, for it knew nothing of humiliated pride, of mortified vanity--nay, nothing even of the fear of possibly becoming ridiculous, by attempting to save a woman who did not at all desire to be saved.
"When I had at last decided in my own heart, I went one forenoon to the house on the Boulevard. The porter smiled as he gave his customary reply: 'Qui, monsieur, au troisème!' to my question if Mademoiselle Eléonore was living there. But he added: 'Mademoiselle will hardly be at home for anybody; she only came home towards daybreak.'
"I ascended the staircase covered with costly carpets; in the third story I read on a china plate near a bell-rope: 'Mademoiselle Eléonore de Saint Georges.' How many names had the poor girl had, since she had laid aside the honest name of her father?
"I rang the bell. An ugly woman, half waiting-maid, half companion, and looking all the uglier because of the neatness of her dress and the affected respectability of her manner, opened and asked me what I wanted, I wished to see Mademoiselle Eléonore.
"'Mademoiselle is indisposed and cannot see anybody to-day.'
"'But I must see her.'
"'Impossible,' said the woman, 'I have just sent for a doctor.'
"'But, madame, I am the doctor.'
"'Ah, c'est autre chose, entrez, monsieur le docteur.'
"She led me through a small entry into a lofty, stately apartment, furnished with almost princely splendor, and asked me to wait there a few minutes, until her mistress should be able to see me.