And half-an-hour later he entered the little drawing-room in the Rue Vaneau, where Madame Liauran was at that moment alone. She was waiting, in fact, for her son, but with mortal anguish. She knew that it was the time for his explanation with Scilly, and the issue of it now frightened her. The sight of Hubert's physiognomy increased her fears. He was livid, with bistre rings beneath his eyes, and Marie Alice immediately felt the counter-shock of this visible emotion. "I have come from my godfather's, mother," the young man began, "and he has said things to me that I shall not forgive him as long as I live. What pained me still more was that he pretended to have from yourself the calumnies which he repeated to me concerning one whom you may not like--but I do not recognise your right to brand her to me, to whom she has always been perfect--" "Do not speak to me in that tone, Hubert," said Madame Liauran, "you hurt me so. It is just as though you were burying a knife in me here." She pointed to her bosom. Ah! it was not only Hubert's tone, his short, hard tone, that was torturing her; it was above all, and once again, the evidence of the feeling that bound him to Madame de Sauve. "Of us two," she thought, "he would choose her." The immediate result of her grief was to revive her hatred for the woman who was its cause, and in her impulse of aversion she found strength to continue the conversation. "You have lost the feelings of our home, my child," she said, in a calmer voice; "you do not understand what tenderness binds us to yourself, and what duties it imposes upon us." "Strange duties, if they consist in echoing degrading reports about one whose only offence is that she has inspired me with a deep affection." "No," said Madame Liauran, who was growing excited in her turn; "it is not a question of resuming a discussion which has already set us face to face as though for a duel," and the glances of mother and son crossed at that moment like two sword-blades. "It is a question of this--that you love a creature who is unworthy of you, and that I, your mother, have had you told so and tell you so again." "And I, your son, reply to you--," and he had the word LIE on his lips; then, as though frightened at what he had been going to say--"that you are mistaken, mother. I ask your pardon for speaking to you in this strain," he added, taking her hand and kissing it; "I am not master of myself."