Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.
--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she
exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels.
And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the
party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and
constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face
was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble
outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have
been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's
fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of
Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was
dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each
gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank
into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair.
The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was
anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot,
to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had
seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of
extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron
Verneuil.
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