tle man and extremely fond of
me."

Tears had risen to her eyes; and Abbe Rose, much touched, dismissed her:
"Well, let us hope that your son will give you satisfaction, and be able
to repay you for all you have done for him."

With a gesture of infinite sorrow, Madame Mathis discreetly withdrew. She
was quite ignorant of her son's doings, but fate had pursued her so
relentlessly that she ever trembled.

"I don't think that the poor woman has much to expect from her son," said
Pierre, when she had gone. "I only saw him once, but the gleam in his
eyes was as harsh and trenchant as that of a knife."

"Do you think so?" the old priest exclaimed, with his kindly _naivete_.
"Well, he seemed to me very polite, perhaps a trifle eager to enjoy life;
but then, all the young folks are impatient nowadays. Come, let us sit
down to table, for the soup will be cold."

Almost at the same hour, on the other side of Paris, night had in like
fashion slowly fallen in the drawing-room of the Countess de Quinsac, on
the dismal, silent ground-floor of an old mansion in the Rue St.
Dominique. The Countess was there, alone with her faithful friend, the
Marquis de Morigny, she on one side, and he on the other side of the
chimney-piece, where the last embers of the wood fire were dying out. The
servant had not yet brought the lamp, and the Countess refrained from
ringing, finding some relief from her anxiety in the falling darkness,
which hid from view all the unconfessed thoughts that she was afraid of
showing on her weary face. And it was only now, before that dim hearth,
and in that black room, where never a sound of wheels disturbed the
silence of the slumberous past, that she dared to speak.

"Yes, my friend," she said, "I am not satisfied with Gerard's health. You
will see him yourself, for he promised to come home early and dine with
me. Oh! I'm well aware that he looks big and strong; but to know him
properly one must have nursed and watched him as I have done! What
trouble I had to rear him! In reality he is at the mercy of any petty
ailment. His slightest complaint becomes serious illness. And the life he
leads does not conduce to good health."

She paused and sighed, hesitating to carry her confession further.

"He leads the life he can," slowly responded the Marquis de Morigny, of
whose delicate profile, and lofty yet loving bearing, little could be
seen in the gloom. "As he was unable to endure military life, and as even
th