Thereupon, without seeking aid of anyone else--for she wished to keep these matters shrouded in the bosom of her family--she dragged herself up to the next story, her mind possessed by the idea that she still had someone to love about her.

But upstairs she found an empty room.

The porter told her that M.Georges had gone out at an early hour.

The room was haunted by the ghost of yet another calamity; the bed with its gnawed bedclothes bore witness to someone's anguish, and a chair which lay amid a heap of clothes on the ground looked like something dead.

Georges must be at that woman's house, and so with dry eyes and feet that had regained their strength Mme Hugon went downstairs.