"You will remember that you will always know where to find us--eh ?" added the little Clerk of the Court.
The going of Jean Jacques was inevitable; all persuasion had failed to induce him to stay--even that of Virginie; and M.Fille now treated it as though it was the beginning of a new career for Jean Jacques, whatever that career might be.

It might be he would come back some day, but not to things as they were, not ever again, nor as the same man.
"You will move on with the world outside there," continued M.Fille, "but we shall be turning on the same swivel here always; and whenever you come--there, you understand.

With us it is semper fidelis, always the same." Jean Jacques looked at M.Fille again as though to ask him a question, but presently he shook his head in negation to his thought.
"Well, good-bye," he said cheerfully--"A la bonne heure!" By that M.Fille knew that Jean Jacques did not wish for company as he went--not even the company of his old friend who had loved the bright whimsical emotional Zoe; who had hovered around his life like a protecting spirit.
"A bi'tot," responded M.Fille, declining upon the homely patois.
But as Jean Jacques walked away with his little book of philosophy in his pocket, and the bird-cage in his hand, someone sobbed.

M.Fille turned and saw.

It was Virginie Poucette.