At this moment a servant in livery brought in a letter for the Abbe de Grancey on a silver tray.
“Pray read it,” said the Baroness.
The Vicar-General read the letter; he saw Rosalie suddenly turn as white as her kerchief.
“She recognizes the writing,” said he to himself, after glancing at the girl over his spectacles. He folded up the letter, and calmly put it in his pocket without a word. In three minutes he had met three looks from Rosalie which were enough to make him guess everything.
“She is in love with Albert Savarus!” thought the Vicar-General.
He rose and took leave. He was going towards the door when, in the next room, he was overtaken by Rosalie, who said:
“Monsieur de Grancey, it was from Albert!”
“How do you know that it was his writing, to recognize it from so far?”
The girl’s reply, caught as she was in the toils of her impatience and rage, seemed to the Abbe sublime.
“I love him!—What is the matter?” she said after a pause.