And Eve, on her side, had watched her mother, and saw the ravages of hidden grief with a feeling of dread; her mother was not growing old, she was failing from day to day. Mother and daughter lived a live of generous deception, and neither was deceived. The brutal old vinegrower’s speech was the last drop that filled the cup of affliction to overflowing. The words struck a chill to Mme. Chardon’s heart. “Here is my mother, monsieur,” said Eve, and the Abbé, looking up, saw a white-haired woman with a face as thin and worn as the features of some aged nun, and yet grown beautiful with the calm and sweet expression that devout submission gives to the faces of women who walk by the will of God, as the saying is. Then the Abbé understood the lives of the mother and daughter, and had no more sympathy left for Lucien; he shuddered to think of all that the victims had endured. “Mother,” said Eve, drying her eyes as she spoke, “poor Lucien is not very far away, he is at Marsac.” “And why is he not here?” asked Mme. Chardon. Then the Abbé told the whole story as Lucien had told it to him--the misery of the journey, the troubles of the last days in Paris. He described the poet’s agony of mind when he heard of the havoc wrought at home by his imprudence, and his apprehension as to the reception awaiting him at Angoulême. “He has doubts of us; has it come to this?” said Mme. Chardon. “The unhappy young man has come back to you on foot, enduring the most terrible hardships by the way; he is prepared to enter the humblest walks in life--if so he may make reparation.” “Monsieur,” Lucien’s sister said, “in spite of the wrong he has done us, I love my brother still, as we love the dead body when the soul has left it; and even so, I love him more than many sisters love their brothers. He has made us poor indeed; but let him come to us, he shall share the last crust of bread, anything indeed that he has left us. Oh, if he had never left us, monsieur, we should not have lost our heart’s treasure.” “And the woman who took him from us brought him back on her carriage!” exclaimed Mme. Chardon. “He went away sitting by Mme. de Bargeton’s side in her calèche, and he came back behind it.” “Can I do anything for you?” asked the good curé, seeking an opportunity to take leave. “A wound in the purse is not fatal, they say, monsieur,” said Mme. Chardon, “but the patient must be his own doctor.” “If you have sufficient influence with my father-in-law to induce him to help his son, you would save a whole family,” said Eve.