Mme. Derize smiled in a way which meant, "How often I have done without carriages!" But she had not reckoned with her age, nor her weakness, and was regaining her breath with difficulty. Marie Louise, Philippe and the little Verniers, who surrounded her, watched her with the surprise of children at old age or illness. Elizabeth begged her friend Blanche to take them away. Left alone with her mother-in-law for whom she prepared a cup of boiling tea, with a little rum in it, she saw her become refreshed little by little, and then sit up, her face expressing that peace, so pure and noble, yet tinged with sadness, with which she accepted all the happenings of life. Then Elizabeth asked herself the reason for her departure from Grenoble, and whether that unexpected visit did not have something to do with Albert's arrival. Mme. Derize did not let her wait long for an explanation which she was eager to give. "Elizabeth, my son has been with me for three days. He has changed very much, he is worried, uneasy and nervous. He is not happy." Attentive and anxious, Elizabeth was silent. "He went away this morning," continued the old lady. "He was here just now." "Here. You have seen him?" Albert's mother bent toward her daughter-in-law, her cheekbones suddenly flushed with a rush of color, contrasting with the pallor of her face, her eyes fixed and shining with fever, in a state of unaccustomed exaltation foreign to her nature. "Not I. But the children." Elizabeth told the short story of the meeting of Marie Louise and Philippe with their father. Mme. Derize, resting against her chair, lost her abnormal excitement as she listened. "Just now," she said, "I thought he was here, that you were reconciled, that he had been unable to go away. I was so happy--so happy." "Oh, Mother, could you hope that?" "I always hope it. And you do, too, do you not?" "I no longer know. I am so weary of suffering! And then how can I forgive him, how can I forget him? He has gone back to _her_." The old woman took Elizabeth's hand and held it. "My child, if you prayed to God, as I do, your hope would be strengthened. Illicit passions can never bring happiness. Happiness means peace in one's heart. They are powerless to insure that." "They bring with them a more passionate existence. I do not understand. That people desire them and die for them suffices to make them endure." "If you could have seen him, listened to him, you would not speak thus. It is not on my account that he came to Grenoble. He thought he would meet the children there. He had no idea that you would remain so late in the mountains. And this morning, instead of leaving for Italy, he came up here without further reflection, in the hope of seeing his children. He has forgotten nothing." "Oh, Mother, and me?" "You, Elizabeth? Did you not understand that it was because of you that he has never tried to see his children until now?"