s friend. If I don't meet him
there I shall ask these people for his address. And, of course, mother
must see him too, later on. There is no guessing what he may have to
tell us. It would be a mercy if mamma could be soothed. You know what
she imagines. Some explanation perhaps may be found, or--or even made
up, perhaps. It would be no sin."

"Certainly," I said, "it would be no sin. It may be a mistake, though."

"I want her only to recover some of her old spirit. While she is like
this I cannot think of anything calmly."

"Do you mean to invent some sort of pious fraud for your mother's sake?"
I asked.

"Why fraud? Such a friend is sure to know something of my brother in
these last days. He could tell us.... There is something in the
facts which will not let me rest. I am certain he meant to join us
abroad--that he had some plans--some great patriotic action in view;
not only for himself, but for both of us. I trusted in that. I looked
forward to the time! Oh! with such hope and impatience. I could have
helped. And now suddenly this appearance of recklessness--as if he had
not cared...."

She remained silent for a time, then obstinately she concluded--

"I want to know...."

Thinking it over, later on, while I walked slowly away from the
Boulevard des Philosophes, I asked myself critically, what precisely was
it that she wanted to know? What I had heard of her history was enough
to give me a clue. In the educational establishment for girls where Miss
Haldin finished her studies she was looked upon rather unfavourably.
She was suspected of holding independent views on matters settled by
official teaching. Afterwards, when the two ladies returned to their
country place, both mother and daughter, by speaking their minds openly
on public events, had earned for themselves a reputation of liberalism.
The three-horse trap of the district police-captain began to be seen
frequently in their village. "I must keep an eye on the peasants"--so he
explained his visits up at the house. "Two lonely ladies must be looked
after a little." He would inspect the walls as though he wanted to
pierce them with his eyes, peer at the photographs, turn over the books
in the drawing-room negligently, and after the usual refreshments,
would depart. But the old priest of the village came one evening in the
greatest distress and agitation, to confess that he--the priest--had
been ordered to watch and ascertain in other ways too (such as usi