I saw him draw from his breast the letter which he had placed there in the train, and tear it open with trembling fingers. He read it slowly. Suddenly his hand fell, and he uttered a groan. His flushed face grew pallid--so pallid that it seemed as though every drop of blood had left his heart. I stepped toward him, but he waved me away and closed his eyes. He looked almost as though he were sleeping. I walked across the room, moving as softly as one does in the chamber of death. I looked up at the wall, where hung a heavy wooden crucifix. How long did I stand gazing on the cross? I have no idea. Nor do I know what we said to someone belonging to the house, who came into the parlor. I was pondering with all my strength of concentration on the strange and mysterious destiny of my friend--on this mysterious woman who might or might not have been his mother. Rouletabille had been so young in those school days. He longed so for a mother, that he might have imagined that he had found one in his visitor. Rouletabille--what other name did we know him by? Joseph Josephin. It was without doubt under that name that he had pursued his early studies here. Joseph Josephin, the queer appellation of which the editor of the _Epoch_ had said to him, “It is no name at all!” And now, what was he about to do here? Seek the trace of a perfume? Revive a memory--an illusion? I turned as I heard him stir. He was standing erect and seemed quite calm. His features had taken on the serenity which comes from assurance of victory. “We must go now, Sainclair. Come, my friend.” And he left the parlor without even looking back. I followed him. In the deserted street, which we regained without meeting anyone, I stopped him by asking anxiously: “Well--did you find the perfume of the Lady in Black?” He must have seen that all my heart was in the question and that I was filled with an ardent desire that this visit to the scenes of his childhood might have brought a little peace to his soul. “Yes,” he said, very gravely. “Yes, Sainclair, I found it.” And he handed me the letter from Professor Stangerson’s daughter. I looked at him, doubting the evidence of my own senses--not understanding, because I knew nothing. Then he took my two hands and looked into my eyes. “I am going to confide a secret to you, Sainclair--the secret of my life, and perhaps some day the secret of my death. Let what will come, it must die with you and me. Mathilde Stangerson had a child--a son. He is dead--is dead to everyone except to the two of us who stand here.” I recoiled, struck with horror under such a revelation. Rouletabille the son of Mathilde Stangerson! And then suddenly I received a still more violent shock. In that case, Rouletabille must be the son of Larsan. Oh, I understood now, all the wretchedness of the boy. I understood why he had said this morning: “Why did he not die? If he is living, I wish to God that I were dead!”