e fancied clung even to herself--the odor of
toil--and filled her with immense sadness.

One evening, Jack found his mother in a state of extraordinary
excitement; her eyes were bright and complexion animated. "D'Argenton
has written to me!" she cried, as he entered the room; "yes, my dear, he
has actually dared to write to me. For four months he did not vouchsafe
a syllable. He writes me now that he is about to return to Paris, and
that, if I need him, he is at my disposal."

"You do not need him, I think," said Jack, quietly, though he was in
reality as much moved as his mother herself.

"Of course I do not," she answered, hurriedly.

"And what shall you say?"

"Say! To a wretch who has dared to lift his hand to me? You do not
yet know me. I have, thank Heaven, more pride than that. I have just
finished his letter, and have torn it into a thousand bits. I am curious
to see his house, though, now that I am not there to keep all in order.
He is evidently out of spirits, and perhaps he is not well, as he has
been for two months at--what is the name of the place?" and she calmly
drew from her pocket the letter which she said she had destroyed. "Ah,
yes, it is at the springs of Royat that he has been. What nonsense!
Those mineral springs have always been bad for him."

Jack colored at her falsehood, but said not one word. All the evening
she was busy, and seemed to have regained the courage and animation
of her first days with her son. While at work she talked to herself.
Suddenly she crossed the room to Jack.

"You are full of courage, my boy," she said, kissing him.

He was occupied in watching all that was going on within his mother's
mind. "It is not I whom she kisses," he said, shrewdly; and his
suspicions were confirmed by a trifle that proved how completely the
past had taken possession of the poor woman's mind. She never ceased
humming the words of a little song of D'Argenton's, which the poet was
in the habit of singing himself at the piano in the twilight. Over and
over again she sang the refrain, and the words revived in Jack's mind
only sad and shameful memories. Ah, if he had dared, what words he would
have said to the woman before him! But she was his mother; he loved
her, and wished by his own respect to teach her to respect herself. He
therefore kept strict guard over his lips. This first warning of coming
danger, however, awoke in him all the jealous foreboding of a man who
was about to be betraye