As each
gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank
into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair.
The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was
anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot,
to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had
seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of
extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron
Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had
positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman
indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid
meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play.
"He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed
some lack of means," said he in conclusion.
"Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them.
"Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a
gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us."
"But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when
Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He
has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money
from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle
Jenny Cadine or Josepha."
The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered;
she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully
up to heaven.
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