She looked fixedly before her, seeming anxious to question the empty space, and at last she replied: "Without doubt, mother." Indeed, on the morrow she seated herself at the work-frame and embroidered as she was wont to do.

She took up her usual routine of daily work, and did not appear to suffer.

Moreover, no allusion was made to the past; she no longer looked from time to time out of the window into the garden, and gradually losing her paleness, the natural colour came back to her cheeks.

The sacrifice appeared to have been accomplished.
Hubert himself thought it was so, and, convinced of the wisdom of Hubertine, did all in his power to keep Felicien at a distance.

The latter, not daring to openly revolt against his father, grew feverishly impatient, to such a degree that he almost broke the promise he had made to wait quietly without trying to see Angelique again.