"At two o'clock."

"I shall have time to sell my furniture," he said, as he bowed to her.

During the short time that Madame de la Chanterie's arm rested upon
his as they walked to the carriage, Godefroid could not escape the
glamour of the words: "Your account is for sixteen hundred thousand
francs!"--words said by Louis Mongenod to the woman whose life was
spent in the depths of the cloisters of Notre-Dame. The thought, "She
must be rich!" entirely changed his way of looking at the matter. "How
old is she?" he began to ask himself; and a vision of a romance in the
rue Chanoinesse came to him. "She certainly has an air of nobility!
Can she be concerned in some bank?" thought he.

In our day nine hundred and ninety-nine young men out of a thousand in
Godefroid's position would have had the thought of marrying that
woman.

A furniture dealer, who also had apartments to let, paid about three
thousand francs for the articles Godefroid was willing to sell, and
agreed to let him keep them during the few days that were needed to
prepare the shabby apartment in the rue Chanoinesse for this lodger
with a sick mind. Godefroid went there at once, and obtained from
Madame de la Chanterie the address of a painter who, for a moderate
sum, agreed to whiten the ceilings, clean the windows, paint the
woodwork, and stain the floors, within a week. Godefroid took the
measure of the rooms, intending to put the same carpet in all of them,
--a green carpet of the cheapest kind. He wished for the plainest
uniformity in this retreat, and Madame de la Chanterie approved of the