It was precisely upon La Croix-Firmin's indiscretion that George relied for mustering some fresh proofs in support of the fact which he had learned at the dinner at the Café Anglais. Being an old bachelor, he had a gloomy imagination, and could foresee ill-fortune rather than good. He had, consequently, long been accustomed to see clearly through the surface of the social world. He understood the art of going in pursuit of secret truth, and he excelled in combining into a single whole the scattered sayings floating in the atmosphere of Parisian conversation. In this particular case there was no need of so many efforts. It was simply a matter of finding corroboration for a detail indisputable in itself. A few visits to women in society who had spent the season at Trouville, and a single one to Ella Virieux, a woman belonging to the demi-monde, and the recognised mistress of La Croix-Firmin's best comrade, were sufficient for the inquiry. It was quite certain that Ludovic had been Madame de Sauve's lover, and that the fact was not only one of public notoriety, but had been established by his own avowal at the seaside. A hasty departure had alone preserved Theresa from an inevitable affront, and now that Parisian life was beginning again, ten new scandals were causing this summer scandal, destined to become dubious like so many others, to be already forgotten. George Liauran perceived in it a sure means of at last breaking the connection between Hubert and Theresa. It was sufficient for this purpose to warn Marie Alice. He felt, indeed, a moment's hesitation, for after all he was meddling with a story which did not at all concern him; but the unacknowledged hatred towards the two lovers which was hidden at the bottom of his heart carried him over this delicate scrupulousness, as well as the real desire to free a woman whom he loved from mortal distress. On the very evening of the day of his conversation with Ella Virieux, who, without attaching any further importance to the matter, had reported to him the secrets which Ludovic had confided to her lover, he was at the Rue Vaneau and relating to Madame Liauran, who was reclining beside Madame Castel's easy chair, the unlooked-for news which was at a stroke to change the aspect of the strife between mother and mistress. "Ah! the wretch!" cried the poor woman, half-dead from her lengthened anguish, "she was not even capable of loving him----" She uttered these words in a deep tone, wherein were condensed all the ideas which she had formed so long before about her son's mistress. She had thought so much about what the nature of this guilty creature's passion could possibly be to render it more potent over Hubert's heart than her own love, which, for all that, she knew to be infinite! Shaking her whitened head, so wearied with musing, she went on: