"The father and mother looked at each other. True, they had said they would not grudge their boy in the service they had all their lives been devoted to, and the risk they did not think so great for him as it perhaps really was. But when it came to the point of his setting off on the long journey--so uncertain how to proceed, so young and inexperienced as he was? "`No, my son,' said Germain. `It is right that I should go myself. I am an ignorant man--less taught than you--but I have the training of age, and have learnt to keep cool and quiet when your fiery young tongue would be getting you into trouble. No, stay you here and take care of your mother, and I will go where it is my duty to go. To-morrow we will talk over about when I should start. I should like to hear what Nanette Delmar thinks about it,' and with these words he rose from his chair, but stiffly and with difficulty; his wife and Pierre both noticed it more than heretofore. He was not the man he had been. "`Sitting so long cramps one--and the fire is out too,' he said. "But his wife looked concerned. "`These damp days in the woods are bringing the rheumatism out again, I fear,' she said sadly; `but I must not murmur; I have had almost too happy a life, even compared with my dear lady. No, I would grudge nothing for _her_.' "Pierre kissed her--more affectionately even than usual, as he bade her good-night. Then he went up to his own little room, his mother thought, to go to bed and sleep as usual. "But early the next morning--very early, while the autumn haze was still over the woods, and the hoarfrost on the fields, there came a soft tap to young Madame Delmar's door. Nanette was up already, for her husband was working just now at some distance, and she had to get his soup ready betimes, and so, as he had half hoped, Pierre Germain found her alone. "He quickly explained his errand. He had come to charge her with the duty of telling his parents that he had gone. "`They must not think me disobedient,' he said. `I feel that I am right, and they too will come to see it. My father is not what he was; if he set off on the journey alone he might fall ill on the way and we never know it; or if I went with him I might be obliged to nurse him in some strange place, feeling miserable at nothing being done. No, Nanette, father is best at home. I am young and strong, and I have so often thought over this, and all that I might have to do, that it seems to me as if I had got it by heart. But you, Nanette, who have seen them so much more lately than we, who have been in Paris and know all about where they live and everything, I want you to talk to me, and tell me all you can, so that I shall feel less confused when I get there.'