he smiled, quite reassured, almost
happy, sure of success and incapable of allowing himself to be unhappy
for long.

"You will write to-day?" he said.

"Directly. Now; at once. I will go and do so. I do not care for any
coffee this morning; I am too nervous."

He rose and left the room.

Then Jean turned to his mother:

"And you, mother, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing. I do not know."

"Will you come with me to call on Mme. Rosemilly?"

"Why, yes--yes."

"You know I must positively go to see her to-day."

"Yes, yes. To be sure."

"Why must you positively?" asked Roland, whose habit it was never to
understand what was said in his presence.

"Because I promised her I would."

"Oh, very well. That alters the case." And he began to fill his pipe,
while the mother and son went upstairs to make ready.

When they were in the street Jean said:

"Will you take my arm, mother?"

He was never accustomed to offer it, for they were in the habit of
walking side by side. She accepted, and leaned on him.

For some time they did not speak; then he said:

"You see that Pierre is quite ready and willing to go away."

She murmured:

"Poor boy."

"But why 'poor boy'? He will not be in the least unhappy on board the
_Lorraine_!"

"No--I know. But I was thinking of so many things."

And she thought for a long time, her head bent, accommodating her step
to her son's; then, in the peculiar voice in which we sometimes give
utterance to the conclusion of long and secret meditations, she
exclaimed:

"How horrible life is! If by any chance we come across any sweetness
in it, we sin in letting ourselves be happy, and pay dearly for it
afterward."

He said in a whisper:

"Do not speak of that any more, mother."

"Is that possible? I think of nothing else."

"You will forget it."

Again she was silent; then with deep regret she said:

"How happy I might have been, married to another man."

She was visiting it on Roland now, throwing all the responsibility of
her sin on his ugliness, his stupidity, his clumsiness, the heaviness
of his intellect, and the vulgarity of his person. It was to this that
it was owing that she had betrayed him, had driven one son to
desperation, and had been forced to utter to the other the most
agonizing confession that can make a mother's heart bleed. She
muttered: "It is so frightful for a young girl to have to marry such a
husband as mine."

Jean made no reply. He was th