An hour and a half to supper-time. Then the meal to be got through as best he could, with that cold, impassive face at the head of the board, and opposite him, rather silent and sad, the old man who had tried to help him. For it was four days since M. des Graves had dragged his secret out of him, and it seemed to Louis, strung to the last pitch of tension, that, but for his merciful inquisition and his own frantic outburst, he must have been mad by now. God! had he not paid, since that day at the ford, for every one of those few and never-repeated kisses! Yet with all his new-born hatred of Gilbert was mingled an unwilling admiration. He himself, who loathed above all things the display of what he really and profoundly felt, had had torn from him that easy, baffling self-control which had always served him so well. But only for a flash, down there by the river, had Gilbert let slip his self-command. He remained now glacially clothed in it—hateful, yet provoking to admiration. . . . But he would think as little as possible of Gilbert. M. des Graves, then. He fell to remembering what the priest had said to him. He had not told him that he had behaved like . . . he could not repeat the word, even to himself. Judge and friend, he had not spared him; he had blamed him severely for ever having revealed his passion to Lucienne; he had pointed out that she could never be the same again, and that therein lay the irreparable injury dealt to Gilbert. But he had told him that, in his efforts to repair that wrong, he had acted like a gentleman; he had begged his pardon for ever having doubted it. When Louis had said bitterly that it seemed of little use, M. des Graves had replied with great earnestness—he could hear him now: “Oh, my dear boy, that is just where you are wrong. Believe an old man when he tells you that sacrifice is only exchange.” Louis did not believe him—he did not even understand him, but he was a little comforted. Comforting too, somehow—though he was not allowed to see the letter—was the knowledge that Lucienne had made a confidant of M. des Graves. Poor darling, was it wonderful! For himself, he had hardly been able to think of her in these black days; it seemed to be dragging her visibly into the presence of their enmity. Yet this evening he began to glide insensibly into imaginations about her; where she had written the letter—if she was happier when it was done—whether the Marquise was kind to her. . . . In the very midst of them came a knock at the door. “Come in,” he called out nonchalantly, and in walked—Gilbert. The Vicomte sprang to his feet. How dared he come here—to the one place that was free from his presence! But Château-Foix closed the door carefully, and came forward, unheeding the furious unspoken greeting. He had a letter in his hand.