Without answering, Albert went to call his mother, who was seated in the adjoining room, quite motionless and discouraged, looking at all the useless preparations of welcome: the only pair of fine sheets, carefully kept since the days of prosperity, the flowers in the vase and the photograph. She rose and followed him obediently like a woman condemned. "It is time," he said. "Philippe is going to the station with me." "Very well." At the moment of leave-taking, struck by her seeming unconsciousness, he whispered to her as he pressed her to his heart: "I have given you much sorrow, Mother." "Yes, a great deal." "You must not desert me." "Oh, I ..." "I am going to confide Marie-Louise and Philippe to you. You will watch over them, from afar, you will see them sometimes. If you have any worries to bear on their account, you will bear them for me." "You know that quite well." "Au revoir, Mother, I shall come back." "May God watch over you!" The door closed. He had forgotten Fanchette who was awaiting her turn, wiping her eyes on her apron. Mme. Derize came back, with a slower step, into the deserted little drawing-room. She reached the window, to see her son once more, as he was leaving the house. She was thinking: "He did not come for me, nor for Elizabeth, nor for the children. Some day, however, I feel it, I am sure, he will come back to them, to us. Perhaps it will not be for a very long time. Let us hope that the evil he will have done will not be irretrievable." Albert, looking up, saw a light in the window which framed a black figure. But he did not hear his mother, who, bending down, was calling to him in a beseeching voice. And on his way to the station, in the carriage with his friend, he did not say a word. PART II I THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD In the beginning of July, the lime trees in the city park at Grenoble were, in addition to their shade, still giving forth the heavy scent of their fading flowers. A light breeze to offset the heat of the sun could be found--there and under the trees on the promenade L'Ile Verte, where nobody goes, and where even the nurses do not willingly take their little charges. After having thrown some bread to the black swan who caught it in his red beak with a loud splash, Marie-Louise and Philippe Derize, who had been summoned home, were saying good-by to their little friends, Jeanne and Renée de Crozet, who were earnestly telling of their early departure. "We are going to Aix-Les-Bains this year." "And we are going to Uriage," replied Marie-Louise who was never at a loss for an answer. "Saint-Martin," explained her stolid brother. "It is in the woods." But the little girl promptly contradicted him: "No, Uriage, it is more fashionable." She thought she had eclipsed Aix-Les-Bains. She loved to excel. On the way back Philippe protested: "Our house is at Saint-Martin. It is in the mountains." "Yes, but we are going to Uriage. You, you sleep like a trunk at night."