“And how are we to-day?” said Bélisaire, cheerily, though he kept his tears back with difficulty. Madame Bélisaire lays on the table two fine oranges she has brought, and then, after a kind remark or two, sits in silence. Jack does not speak; his eyes are wide open and fixed. Of what is he thinking? “Jack,” said the good woman, suddenly, “I am going to find your mother;” and she smiled encouragingly. Yes, that is what he wants; now that he knows that he must die, he forgets all the wrongs his mother has been guilty of toward him. But Bélisaire does not wish his wife to go. He knows that she holds in utter contempt “the fine lady,” as she calls Jack’s mother, that she detests the man with the moustache, and that she will make a scene, and perhaps—who knows but the police may be called in? “No,” she said, “that is all nonsense;” but finally yielded to the persuasions of her husband, and allowed him to go in her stead. “I will bring her this time, never fear!” he said, with an air of confidence. “Where are you going?” asked the concierge, stopping him at the foot of the staircase. “To M. D’Argenton’s.” “Are you the man who was here last night?” “Precisely,” answered Bélisaire, innocently. “Then you need not go up, for there is no one there; they have gone to the country, and will not return for some time.” In the country, in all this cold and snow! It seemed impossible. In vain did he insist, in vain did he say that the lady’s son was very ill—dying in the hospital. The concierge held to his statement, and would not permit Bélisaire to go one step further. The poor man retreated to the street again. Suddenly a brilliant idea struck him. Jack had never told him any of the particulars of what had taken place between the Rivals and himself; he had merely stated the fact that the marriage was broken off. But at Indret and in Paris he had often spoken of the goodness and charity of the kind doctor. If he could only be induced to come to Jack’s bedside, so that the poor boy could have some familiar face about him! Without further hesitation he started for Etiolles. Alas, we saw him at the end of this long walk!