One day, hidden behind the window curtain, Ralph watched Bregeac at Aurelie’s bedside. He was a bilious-looking person with a thin and yellow face. Of rather more than middle height, he carried himself with something of an air, and at any rate he was a man of greater elegance and distinction than the vulgar Marescal. Awaking suddenly, Aurelie caught sight of him bending over her, and said in harsh enough accents: “Leave me! Go away!” “How you detest me and how you would love to injure me!” he murmured sadly. “I should never injure the man that my mother married,” she said. He gazed upon her with eyes full of suffering. “You are very beautiful, my poor child,” he said. “But, alas, why have you always rejected my affection? Yes, I know that I was in the wrong. For a very long while I was only drawn to you by that secret you kept from me for no reason whatever. But if you had not been so stubborn in that absurd silence, I should never have dreamt of the love which now tortures me, for you will never love me—it is not possible that you should ever love me.” She did not wish to listen to him and turned away her head. However, he went on: “During your delirium you often spoke of revelations you wanted to make to me. Were they revelations about the secret, or about your senseless flight with that fellow William? Where did that outsider take you? What became of you before you took refuge in your convent?” She did not answer—either because she was too exhausted to answer, or because she disliked him too heartily. He said no more and went away. When he had gone, Ralph, slipping away in his turn, saw that she was weeping. Finally, at the end of a fortnight’s investigation any one but Ralph would have been discouraged. Speaking generally, apart from certain tendencies, which he had interpreted in his own way, the chief problems remained insoluble, or, at any rate, were incapable of any apparent solution. “But I am not wasting my time,” he said to himself; “and that is the essential thing. Action often consists of inactivity. The atmosphere is less thick. My vision of the characters and events in this affair is growing stronger and more precise. If the fact which is the key to the problem is still missing, I am in the very heart of the enemy’s camp. On the eve of a combat which promises to be so violent, when all these mortal enemies confront one another, the needs of the fight itself and of finding effective weapons will certainly give me the unexpected jolt which will strike out the sparks which will show me the truth.”