"That is delightful! It is kind and just like you," said the Duchess, sealing up the note; and the Duke rang while his mother was writing the address. The message being despatched, she said to them, "Why can't you both go after the Marquis! Is he so very far off!" "Twelve hours by post, at the very most," replied the Duke. "And I cannot know where he is?" "I ought not to tell you; but I'm convinced he will now have no more secrets from you. Happiness induces confidence." "My son," returned the Marchioness, "you alarm me seriously. Perhaps your brother is here sick, and you are hiding it from me, as you did at Séval. He is worse even; you make me believe he is away because he is n't able to be up." "No, no!" cried Diana, laughing; "he is n't here, he is n't sick. He is abroad, he is travelling, he is sad, perhaps; but he is going to be happy now, and he did n't start without some hope of mollifying you." The Duke solemnly assured his mother that his wife was telling the truth. "Well, my children," resumed the Marchioness, still uneasy, "I wish I could know you were with him. How shall I say it?--He has never been ill but that I have suspected it or at least felt a peculiar uneasiness. I was conscious of this at Séval, exactly at the period when he was so ill without my knowledge. I see that what you describe coincides with a fearful night which I passed then. Well, to-day, this morning, I was all alone, and I had what I may call a waking dream. I saw the Marquis pale, wrapped in something white, a shroud, perhaps, and I heard in my ear his voice, his own voice, saying, 'Mother.'" "Heavens! what fancies you torment yourself with!" said the Duke. "I don't torment myself willingly; and I let my presentiments comfort me, for I want to tell you the whole. For an hour past I have known that my son is well; but he has been in danger to-day. He has suffered,--or it may have been an accident. Remember now the day and the hour." "There! you must go," said the Duchess to her husband. "I don't believe a word of all this, but we must reassure your mother." "You shall go with him," said the Marchioness. "I don't want my gloomy notions, which, after all, are perhaps morbid and nothing else, to give you the first annoyance of your married life." "And leave you alone with these ideas!" "They will all vanish as soon as I see you going after him." The Marchioness insisted. The Duchess ordered a light trunk; and two hours afterward she was travelling by post with her husband through Tulle and Aurillac, on the way to Le Puy. The Duchess knew the secret of her brother-in-law; she was ignorant of the mother's name, but aware of the existence of the child. The Marquis had authorized the Duke to have no secrets from his wife.