. Her face was unchanged. She had the same youthful look, but her
hair was as white, as snow. Madame de Camors was sitting on a couch
nearly in front of the window and undressing her son, at the same time
talking to and caressing him.

The child, at a sign, knelt down at his mother's feet in his light
night-garments, and while she held his joined hands in her own, he began
in a loud voice his evening prayers. She whispered him from time to time
a word that escaped him. This prayer, composed of a number of phrases
adapted to a youthful mind, terminated with these words: "O God! be good
and merciful to my mother, my grandmother, to me--and above all, O God,
to my unfortunate father." He pronounced these words with childish haste,
but under a serious look from his mother, he repeated them immediately,
with some emotion, as a child who repeats the inflection of a voice which
has been taught him.

Camors turned suddenly and retired noiselessly, leaving the garden by the
nearest gate. A fixed idea tortured him. He wished to see his son--to
speak to him--to embrace him, and to press him to his heart. After that,
he cared for little.

He remembered they had formerly the habit of taking the child to the
dairy every morning to give him a cup of milk. He hoped they had
continued this custom. Morning arrived, and soon came the hour for which
he waited. He hid himself in the walk which led to the farm. He heard the
noise of feet, of laughter, and of joyous cries, and his son suddenly
appeared running in advance. He was a charming little boy of five or six
years, of a graceful and proud mien. On perceiving M. de Camors in the
middle of the walk he stopped, he hesitated at this unknown or
half-forgotten face; but the tender and half-supplicating smile of Camors
reassured him.

"Monsieur!" he said, doubtfully.

Camors opened his arms and bent as if to kneel before him.

"Come and embrace me, I beg of you," he murmured.

The child had already advanced smiling, when the woman who was following
him, who was his old nurse, suddenly appeared. 'She made a gesture of
fright:

"Your father!" she said, in a stifled voice.

At these words the child uttered a cry of terror, rushed back to the
nurse, pressed against her, and regarded his father with frightened eyes.

The nurse took him by the arm, and earned him off in great haste.

M. de Camors did not weep. A frightful contraction distorted the corners
of his mouth, and exaggerated