Angelot was a little impressed. He had very seldom seen his father, so hopeful, so even-tempered, with a cloud of anxiety on his face. The very rarity of such uneasiness made it catching. A sort of apprehensive chill seemed to creep from the corners of the dark old room, steal along by the shuttered windows, hover about the gaping cavern of the hearth. It became an air, breathing through the room in the motionless September night, so that the candle-flames on madame's table bent and flickered suddenly. Then the dogs out in the yard began to bark. "They are barking at the moon," said Monsieur Urbain. "No, at somebody passing by." "Somebody is coming in, father," said Angelot, "I hear footsteps in the court--they are on the steps--in the porch. Shall I see who it is?" "Do, my boy." The mother turned pale, half rose, as if to stop him. "Not the police!" were the words on her lips; but her husband's calmness reassured her. Angelot went out into the hall, and reached the house-door just as somebody outside began to knock upon it. He opened it, and saw two figures standing in the half-darkness: for the moon was not yet very high, and while she bathed all the valley in golden light, making Lancilly's walls and windows shine with a fairy beauty, the house at La Marinière still cast a broad shadow. The figures were of a man and a woman, strangers to Angelot; he, standing in the dark doorway, was equally strange to them and only dimly visible. The stranger lifted his hand courteously to his hat, and there was a touch of hesitation in his very musical voice, as if--which was the fact--he did not know to whom he was speaking. "Madame de la Marinière is at home? She receives this evening?" "Certainly, monsieur," said Angelot. "One moment, and I will fetch a light--madame--" and he bowed low to the stranger's companion. "What? Are you Angelot? Shake hands: there is light enough for that," said the visitor with sudden friendliness. "Let me present you to my daughter Hélène--your cousin, in fact." The slender, silent girl who stood by Monsieur de Sainfoy might have been pretty or ugly--there was no light to show--but Angelot seemed to know by instinct at once all that he was to discover afterwards. He bowed again, and kissed Hélène's glove, and felt a most unreasonable dizziness, a wildfire rushing through his young veins; all this for the first time in his boyish life and from no greater apparent cause than the sweetness of her voice when she said, "Bonjour, mon cousin!" Then, before he could turn round, his father was there, carrying one of the heavy candlesticks, and all the porch was full of light and of cheerful voices. "I am triumphant," cried the Comte de Sainfoy. "My wife said I could not find my way. I felt sure I had not forgotten boyish days so completely, and Hélène was ready to trust herself to me, and glad to wait upon madame her cousin."