Not but what after our separation a regular correspondence had been established between us. At the beginning he had given me wise advice and had shown himself pleasantly paternal. His first letter indeed contained the announcement of a Will in my favor hidden in the secret drawer of a desk at Fonval. After the rendering of his accounts as guardian our relations remained as before. Then, suddenly, his messages became different in character, and grew fewer and fewer, their tone becoming that of boredom, then of annoyance. The matter was commonplace, then vulgar, and the phrasing awkward; the very writing seemed to alter. Each time he wrote, these things became more marked, and I had to limit myself every 1st of January to sending my best wishes. My uncle replied with a few scribbled words.... Wounded in the only affection I possessed, I was much afflicted. What had happened? A year before this sudden change--five years before my return to Fonval and my wanderings in the labyrinth--I had read in the “Epoca”: “We have received the news from Paris that Professor Lerne is saying good-by to his patients in order to devote himself to scientific research begun in the hospital of Nanthel. With this aim that excellent physician is retiring to the neighborhood of the town in the Ardennes, to his _château_ of Fonval which has been arranged for that purpose. He is taking with him among others, Dr. Klotz of Mannheim and the three assistants of the _Anatomisches Institut_ founded by this latter at 22, Friedrichstrasse, which has now closed its doors--when shall we have results?” Lerne had confirmed this event to me in an enthusiastic letter, which, however, added nothing to the bald facts in the paragraph. And it was a year later on, I say again, that the change in his nature had taken place. Had twelve months of work ended in failure? Had some bitter disappointment so gravely affected the Professor that he should treat me like a stranger and almost as if I were a bore?... In defiance of his hostility I wrote respectfully and with the utmost possible affection from Paris the letter in which I told him of my good fortune, and I asked his leave to pay him a visit. Never was invitation less engaging than his. He asked me to give him warning of my arrival so that he might order a carriage to go and fetch me from the station. “You will doubtless not remain long at Fonval,” he added, “for Fonval is not a gay place. We are hard at work. _Come alone and give notice._” But, Heavens! I _had_ given notice and I _was_ alone!--I who had considered my visit as a duty! Well, well, that was merely a piece of stupidity on my part. And I gazed in bad humor at the star of light on the roads where the exhausted head-lamps were casting no brighter an illumination than a night-light.