“So you have succeeded? Oh, I am glad!... Why should I deny it? I was bothered in advance about what other people would say: pardon my weakness, I can confess it now that I have accepted you as a daughter before knowing that your parents were worthy of you. The fear that they might not be was the only obstacle; and that was irrevocable. But I overcame that fear. Something to boast of, was it not? As though it were difficult to know them, when one knows you!” She took the letter, felt it and said: “We shall soon learn the name of two good people. Your father must have had your fascination, Gilberte; and your mother: I picture your mother as an exquisite, charming creature like yourself.... Did you love her very much?” “More than my life, madame.” “Here, Guillaume, read it out.” Guillaume took and opened the envelope. As he was unfolding the letter which it contained, he had a momentary hesitation. “Why, what’s the matter?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye. “Nothing,” he said, presently. And he unfolded the letter. They were there, all three of them, affected in different ways, but anxious and even a little timorous, as we are at the approach of the solemn events of our lives, even when we expect nothing from them but pleasure and satisfaction. “Well?” asked Gilberte, who was certainly the least excited of the three. Guillaume made up his mind and read, aloud: “MADEMOISELLE, “As I expected, our friend Renaudeau did not persist in his silence very long and, without further procrastination, has told us as much of your father’s story as interests you. We now know that, at the time when he was living in France....” Guillaume stopped. He hesitated once more and the letter fell from his hands to his knees. Mme. de la Vaudraye grew impatient: “What are you thinking of, my boy?” He replied, in a dreamy voice: “I am thinking that we are about to violate the secret of two persons who must surely have had their reasons for keeping it so carefully. They may have been the offspring of two rival families, or a pair of lovers who were kept apart by convention, but whose hearts drew them together. Who can tell? In any case, don’t you think that their secret belongs to them and that there is no reason that authorizes us to violate it?” “What do you mean?” “Oh, mother, tell me what reasons you can have, tell me before that angel who is listening to us! You treated them as rubbish just now: have they become graver reasons since? State them: express your fear of public opinion, your dread of evil tongues, your horror of comment; and, as you do so, look into that pair of child-eyes and ask yourself if they understand what you are saying.” She protested feebly: “What a strange wish, Guillaume! There is something which you are keeping back.”