Hope flickered up in the bosom of Clotilde: the whispers were exchanged through the partition.
'Where is he ?' 'Gone.' 'But where ?' 'He has left the city.' Clotilde pushed the letter for her friend under the door: that one for Alvan she retained, stung by his desertion of her, and thinking practically that it was useless to aim a letter at a man without an address.

She did not ask herself whether the maid's information was honest, for she wanted to despair, as the exhausted want to lie down.
She wept through the night.

It was one of those nights of the torrents of tears which wash away all save the adamantine within us, if there be ought of that besides the breathing structure.

The reason why she wept with so delirious a persistency was, that her nature felt the necessity for draining her of her self-pitifulness, knowing that it nourished the love whereby she was tormented.

They do not weep thus who have a heart for the struggle.