Thus he had on his little finger a gold wedding ring which she did not recognise as one of his own. Ah! what would she have given to know whether there were words and a date engraved on the inside! Sometimes, when kissing him, she would inhale a scent the name of which she did not know, and which was certainly that used by his mistress. Whenever Madame Liauran encountered the penetrating and voluptuous delicacy of this perfume, it was as though a hand had physically bruised her heart. At last her passion had reached such a pitch, that everything was bound to inflict, and did inflict, a wound. If she ascertained that his eyes looked worn and his complexion pale, she would say to her mother: "She will kill me." It had always been the custom in this simple-mannered family that the letters should be given into the hands of Madame Liauran herself, who afterwards distributed them to their several owners. Hubert had not ventured to ask Firmin, the doorkeeper, to break the rule for him. Would not this have been to admit the servant into the secret of the differences which separated his mother and himself? Now, his mistress and he used to correspond every day, whether they had already met or not, with the prodigality of heart characteristic of lovers who know not how to give enough of themselves to each other. Hubert often succeeded in preventing his mother from seeing these letters by making an agreement as to the exact time that Theresa should despatch her note, and hastening down in time to take the post himself from the doorkeeper's hands. Often, also, the letter would arrive unpunctually, and had to come to him through Madame Liauran. The latter was never deceived about it. She recognised the writing which to her was the most hateful in the world. Often, again, instead of a letter, Theresa would send one of those little blue, quick-travelling missives, and the sense that this paper had been handled by her son's mistress an hour before was intolerable to the poor woman. To save Hubert dishonourable strategies, and herself such terrible palpitation of the heart, she resolved upon ordering her son's letters to be delivered directly to himself. But then she lost the only tokens she possessed of the reality of the young man's relations with Madame de Sauve, and this was a source of fresh hopes, and consequently of fresh disillusions.