He fled, whither? how? by what routes? He never knew with clearness what he had done that day. On the morrow he recollected, because he had the palpable proof of it before him, that once he had caught sight of his haggard face and windblown hair in the glass of a shop window, and that, with an odd survival of carefulness about his dress, he had entered a shop to buy a hat. Then he had walked straight before him, passing through innumerable Paris districts. Houses succeeded houses indefinitely. At one time he was in the country of the suburbs. The storm burst, and he had been able to take shelter under a railway-bridge. How long did he remain thus? The rain fell in torrents. He was leaning against one of the walls of the bridge. Trains passed at intervals, shaking all the stones. The rain ceased. He resumed his walk, splashing through the puddles of water, without food since the morning, and heedless of his fast. The automatic movement of his body was necessary to him that he might not founder in madness, and instinctively he walked on. The monstrous thing which he had perceived through the shock of a terrible dread was there before his eyes; he could see it; he knew it to be real, and he did not understand it. He was like a crushed man. He experienced a sensation so intolerable that it had even ceased to be pain, with such completeness did it suppress the powers of his being and overwhelm them. Evening was coming on. He found himself again on the road towards home, guided to it by the mechanical impulse which brings back the bleeding animal in the direction of its den. About ten o'clock he rang at the door of the house in the Rue Vaneau. "Nothing has happened to you, sir?" asked the doorkeeper; "the ladies were so anxious----" "Let them know that I have come in," said the young man, "but that I am unwell and wish to be alone, absolutely alone, Firmin; you understand." The tone in which these words were uttered cut short all questions on the lips of the old servant. He followed Hubert, apparently dazed by the furious lightning which he had just perceived in the eyes of his young master and by the disorder of his dress. He saw him cross the hall and enter the pavilion, and went up himself to the drawing-room to give his mistress the strange message with which he was charged. The mother had expected her son at luncheon. Hubert had not come in. Although he had never before failed to appear without giving her notice, she had striven not to be too anxious about it. The afternoon passed without news, and then the dinner-hour struck. Still no news. "Mamma," Madame Liauran said to Madame Castel, "some misfortune has happened. Who can tell whither despair has led him?" "He has been detained by friends," the old lady replied, concealing her own in order to control her daughter's anxiety.