"Oh! bless your heart! I was straightening out my reins, and I didn't see them embrace. The lady called out to me: 'Take me back to where you brought me from!'—The young man shut the door and went off—but, yes, I remember now that he said to her, as he went away: 'Thank you, thank you a thousand times for coming!'—Now, where'll you go, bourgeois?"
"To the Jardin des Plantes, to the same spot where that lady got out."
Adhémar's brain was on fire, his heart beat violently; he pressed his hands against his brow, saying to himself:
"It is absolutely certain now—she too deceives me—and she dared to tell me that she loved me! Ah! we don't deceive those whom we love! It is all over—yes, all over, this time! I won't see her again, for she would tell me another lie; she would invent some fable to make me believe that she is innocent! And perhaps I should be idiot enough to believe her. But, no, I do not propose to be her dupe again; I will see her no more. But that man with whom she makes assignations so early in the day—ah! if I could find out who he is, I would kill him! And yet, he is not the guilty one, for he loves her. But not as I loved her—oh, no!"
As he glanced about, Adhémar saw a handkerchief at his feet; he picked it up, examined it, and recognized Nathalie's monogram, which he had seen her embroidering with her own hands.
"She was so engrossed that she forgot it!" he muttered, twisting the handkerchief in his clenched hands. "A moment ago, she was here, on this seat, and she was thinking of another man!"
He could no longer control his grief; he sobbed bitterly, and the tears rushed from his eyes; but he felt a sort of pleasure in wiping them away with the handkerchief which belonged to her.
The cab stopped and the driver opened the door, saying:
"This is the very place where the little lady got out, bourgeois, and where I waited for her. There's the Jardin des Plantes."
Adhémar, absorbed by his reflections and memories, had no idea where he was or whither he was going. The cabman's words recalled him to himself. He jumped out of the cab and said to the man: