"He is deceiving us," said Madame Liauran to herself, and, as silence had fallen upon those in the drawing-room after Hubert's departure, she listened to hear whether the hall-door would be opened immediately. Half-an-hour passed without her hearing it. She could not stand it, and she begged the General to go to the young man's room, under pretence of fetching a book, in order to learn whether he had dressed that evening. He had, in fact, done so. He was going, then, to Madame de Sauve's house, or else somewhere in order to meet her again. Such was the conclusion drawn from this indication by the jealous mother, who, for the first time, confessed her lengthened anxieties to the Count. The tone in which she spoke prevented the latter from confessing, in his turn, the loan of one hundred and twenty pounds which Hubert had received from him, and which, so he thought to himself, had doubtless been spent in following this woman. "He has deceived me once more," exclaimed Madame Liauran; "he who had such a horror of deceit. Ah! how she has changed him!" Thus the evidence of a metamorphosis of character undergone by her son tortured her on that first day. It became even worse during those which followed. She would not, however, admit all at once that her dear, innocent Hubert was Madame de Sauve's lover. She would not resign herself to the idea that he could be guilty of an error of the kind without terrible remorse. She had brought him up in such strict principles of religion! She did not know that Theresa's first care was just to lull all the young man's scruples of conscience by leading him insensibly from timid tenderness to burning passion. Caught in the mesh of this sweet snare, Hubert had literally never judged his life for the past five months, and nature had become his lover's accomplice. We easily repent of our pleasures, but it is difficult to have remorse for happiness, and the youth was happy with such an absolute felicity as cannot even see the sufferings that it causes.