A witness of her frequent absences, clumsily accounted for, Rodolphe entered upon the painful track of suspicion.

But as soon as he felt himself on the trail of some proof of infidelity, he eagerly drew a bandage over his eyes in order to see nothing.

However, a strange, jealous, fantastic, quarrelsome love which the girl did not understand, because she then only felt for Rodolphe that lukewarm attachment resulting from habit.

Besides, half of her heart had already been expended over her first love, and the other half was still full of the remembrance of her first lover.
Eight months passed by in this fashion, good and evil days alternating.
During this period Rodolphe was a score of times on the point of separating from Mademoiselle Mimi, who had for him all the clumsy cruelties of the woman who does not love.

Properly speaking, this life had become a hell for both.