An hour later he was travelling post to Paris, with the haste that nothing but passion or speculation can get out of wheels.
Recovering herself under Modeste's tender care, Madame Mignon went up to her bedroom leaning on the arm of her daughter, to whom she said, as her sole reproach, when they were alone:-- "My unfortunate child, see what you have done! Why did you conceal anything from me?
Am I so harsh ?" "Oh! I was just going to tell it to you comfortably," sobbed Modeste.
She thereupon related everything to her mother, read her the letters and their answers, and shed the rose of her poem petal by petal into the heart of the kind German woman.

When this confidence, which took half the day, was over, when she saw something that was almost a smile on the lips of the too indulgent mother, Modeste fell upon her breast in tears.
"Oh, mother!" she said amid her sobs, "you, whose heart, all gold and poetry, is a chosen vessel, chosen of God to hold a sacred love, a single and celestial love that endures for life; you, whom I wish to imitate by loving no one but my husband,--you will surely understand what bitter tears I am now shedding.

This butterfly, this Psyche of my thoughts, this dual soul which I have nurtured with maternal care, my love, my sacred love, this living mystery of mysteries--it is about to fall into vulgar hands, and they will tear its diaphanous wings and rend its veil under the miserable pretext of enlightening me, of discovering whether genius is as prudent as a banker, whether my Melchior has saved his money, or whether he has some entanglement to shake off; they want to find out if he is guilty to bourgeois eyes of youthful indiscretions,--which to the sun of our love are like the clouds of the dawn.

Oh! what will come of it?
what will they do?
See! feel my hand, it burns with fever.

Ah! I shall never survive it." And Modeste, really taken with a chill, was forced to go to bed, causing serious uneasiness to her mother, Madame Latournelle, and Madame Dumay, who took good care of her during the journey of the lieutenant to Paris,--to which city the logic of events compels us to transport our drama for a moment.
Truly modest minds, like that of Ernest de La Briere, but especially those who, knowing their own value, also know that they are neither loved nor appreciated, can understand the infinite joy to which the young secretary abandoned himself on reading Modeste's letter.