pulse of friendship towards the mysterious unknown?
Gilberte took little or no heed of what the town said of all these happenings, having asked Adèle not to tell her: an order which the unfortunate servant found great difficulty in obeying! Domfront was bubbling and seething with comments! For, after all, there was this undeniable fact: in the sight of the whole world, as everybody could bear witness, a formal proposal had been made for Gilberte's hand in marriage; and it resulted in a breach between the La Vaudrayes and Mme. Armand. A complete breach! For they no longer even saw one another. And the inexplicable thing was that, since that famous afternoon, Mme. Armand had not once left the Logis.
What was underneath it all? From which side did the breach come? A score of contradictory versions went the round of the town, but none of them bore the marks of indisputable authenticity upon which the
