He searches for a while in vain. At last he enters the conservatory. A low sound of sobbing, reminding one of some wounded animal who has crept into some hiding-place to die, falls upon his ear. He hurries on. There, in the same little boudoir where he had lately been with the Princess Oblonsky, Stella is cowering on a divan in the darkest corner, her face hidden in her hands, her whole frame convulsed with sobs.
"Baroness Stella!" he says, advancing. She does not hear him. "Stella!" he says, more loudly, laying his hand on her arm. She starts, drops her hands in her lap, and gazes at him with such terrible despair in her eyes that for an instant he trembles for her reason. He forgets everything,--all that has been tormenting him; his soul is filled only with anxiety for her. "What is the matter? what distresses you?" he asks.
"I cannot tell it," she replies, in a voice so hoarse, so agonized, that he hardly knows it for hers. "It is something horrible,--disgraceful! It was in the dining-room I was sitting rather alone, when I heard two gentlemen talking. I caught my own name, and then--and then--I would not believe it; I thought I had not heard aright then the gentlemen passed me, and one of them looked at me and laughed, and then--and then--I saw an English girl whom I knew at the Britannia, in Venice--she was with her mother, and she came up to me and held out her hand with a smile, but her mother pulled her back,--I saw her,--and she turned away. And then came Stasy----" Her eyes encounter Rohritz's. "Ah! you have heard it too!" She moans and puts her hands up to her throbbing temples. Her cheeks are scarlet; she is half dead with shame and horror. "You too!" she repeats. "I knew that something would happen to me at this ball when I found I had lost my bracelet again, but I never--never thought it would be so horrible as this! Oh, papa, papa, I only hope you did not hear,--did not see; you could not rest peacefully in your grave." And again she buries her face in her hands and sobs.
A short pause ensues.
"She is innocent; of course she is innocent," an inward voice exclaims exultantly, and Rohritz is overwhelmed with remorse for having doubted her for an instant. He would fain fall down at her feet and kiss the hem of her dress.
"Be comforted: your bracelet is found," he whispers, softly. "Here it is!"
She snatches it from him. "Ah, where did you find it?" she asks, eagerly, her eyes lighting up in spite of her distress.
"I did not find it. Monsieur de Hauterive found it on the first landing of the staircase at Number ----, Rue d'Anjou," he says, speaking with difficulty.
"Ah, I might have known! I must have lost it when I went to see my poor aunt Corrèze, and when I dropped my bundles on the stairs!" She is not in the least embarrassed. She evidently does not even know that Zino's lodgings are in the Rue d'Anjou.
"Your aunt Corrèze?" asks Rohritz.