These words, "Your mother is dead," awakened a new sorrow; it was the torment of the flesh which cannot forget, the cruel echo of past sufferings; but mostly the thrill of the fleeting, delirious bliss of his youthful passion. The young man replied: "Yes, Monsieur le Curé, my mother is dead." "Has she been dead a long while?" "Yes, three years." A new doubt entered the priest's mind. "And why did you not find me out before?" The other man hesitated. "I was unable to, I was prevented. But excuse me for interrupting these recollections--I will enter into more details later--for I have not had anything to eat since yesterday morning." A tremor of pity shook the old man and holding forth both hands: "Oh! my poor child!" he said. The young fellow took those big, powerful hands in his own slender and feverish palms. Then he replied, with that air of sarcasm which hardly ever left his lips: "Ah! I'm beginning to think that we shall get along very well together, after all!" The curé started toward the lodge. "Let us go to dinner," he said. He suddenly remembered, with a vague and instinctive pleasure, the fine fish he had caught, which, with the chicken, would make a good meal for the poor fellow. The servant was in front of the door, watching their approach with an anxious and forbidding face. "Marguerite," shouted the abbé, "take the table and put it into the dining-room, right away; and set two places, as quick as you can." The woman seemed stunned at the idea that her master was going to dine with this tramp. But the abbé, without waiting for her, removed the plate and napkin and carried the little table into the dining-room. A few minutes later he was sitting opposite the beggar, in front of a soup-tureen filled with savory cabbage soup, which sent up a cloud of fragrant steam. III. When the plates were filled, the tramp fell to with ravenous avidity. The abbé had lost his appetite and ate slowly, leaving the bread in the bottom of his plate. Suddenly he inquired: "What is your name?" The man smiled; he was delighted to satisfy his hunger. "Father unknown," he said, "and no other name but my mother's, which you probably remember. But I possess two Christian names, which, by the way, are quite unsuited to me--Philippe-Auguste." The priest whitened. "Why were you named thus?" he asked. The tramp shrugged his shoulders. "I fancy you ought to know. After mother left you, she wished to make your rival believe that I was his child. He did believe it until I was about fifteen. Then I began to look too much like you. And he disclaimed me, the scoundrel. I had been christened Philippe-Auguste; now, if I had not resembled a soul, or if I had been the son of a third person, who had stayed in the background, to-day I should be the Vicomte Philippe-Auguste de Pravallon, son of the count and senator bearing this name. I have christened myself 'No-luck.'" "How did you learn all this?"