When this unpleasant duty was over, M.de Breulh had hoped to experience some feeling of relief, but in this he was mistaken.

He tried cards, but rose from the table in a quarter of an hour; he ordered dinner, but appetite was wanting; he went to the opera, but then he did nothing but yawn, and the music grated on his nerves.

At length he returned home.

The day had seemed interminable, and he could not sleep, for Sabine's face was ever before him.

Who could this man be whom she so fondly loved and preferred before all others?
He respected her too much not to feel assured that her choice was a worthy one, but his experience had taught him that when so many men of the world fell into strange entanglements, a poor girl without knowledge of the dangers around her might easily be entrapped.
"If he is worthy of her," thought he, "I will do my best to aid her; but if not, I will open her eyes." At four o'clock in the morning he was still seated musing before the expiring embers of his fire; he had made up his mind to see Andre--there was no difficulty in this, for a man of taste and wealth can find a ready excuse for visiting the studio of a struggling artist.