uld get no further details at the Paris bureaus;
therefore he set out for Geneva, went to the Red Cross, the Agency for
Prisoners,--could find nothing; followed up every clue, got permission
to question comrades of his son in hospitals or depots behind the
lines. They all gave contradictory information; one said he was a
prisoner, another had seen him dead, and both the next day admitted
that they had been mistaken.... Oh! tortures! God of vengeance!...
He came back after a fortnight from this Way of the Cross, aged,
broken-down, exhausted.

He found his wife in a paroxysm of frantic grief, which in this
good-natured creature had turned to a furious hatred of the enemy;
she cried out for revenge, and for the first time Clerambault did not
answer. He had not strength enough to hate, he could only suffer.

He shut himself into his room. During that frightful ten days'
pilgrimage he had scarcely looked his thoughts in the face, hypnotised
as he was, day and night by one idea, like a dog on a scent,--faster!
go faster! The slowness of carriages and trains consumed him, and
once, when he had taken a room for the night, he rushed away the same
evening, without stopping to rest. This fever of haste and expectation
devoured everything, and made consecutive thought impossible,--which
was his salvation. Now that the chase was ended, his mind, exhausted
and dying, recovered its powers.

Clerambault knew certainly that Maxime was dead. He had not told his
wife, but had concealed some information that destroyed all hope. She
was one of those people who absolutely must keep a gleam of falsehood
to lure them on, against all reason, until the first flood of grief is
over. Perhaps Clerambault himself had been one of them, but he was not
so now; for he saw where this lure had led him. He did not judge, he
was not yet able to form a judgment, lying in the darkness. Too weak
to rise, and feel about him, he was like someone who moves his crushed
limbs after a fall, and with each stab of pain recovers consciousness
of life, and tries to understand what has happened to him. The stupid
gulf of this death overcame him. That this beautiful child, who had
given them so much joy, cost them so much care, all this marvel of
hope in flower, the priceless little world that is a young man, a tree
of Jesse, future years ... all vanished in an hour!--and why?--why?--

He was forced to try to persuade himself at least that it was for
something great a