They passed in this way two hours, which seemed to them like two minutes; Michel told her the whole story of his life, and did not conceal even his recent emotions. The passionate attachment which he had felt for his mother before he knew her no longer raised in his mind any question too delicate to be translated by words befitting the sanctity of their new relations. The words he had used to himself had assumed a new meaning, and whatever impropriety there might have been in them had vanished like the incoherent words one utters in fever, which leave no trace when health and reason have returned. Moreover, except for a few outbursts of vanity, Michel had had no thoughts for which he need blush now upon searching his conscience. He had believed that she loved him, and therein he was hardly in error! He had been assailed by an ardent passion, and he felt that he loved Agatha, now that she had become his mother, with no less warmth, gratitude, even jealousy, than an hour earlier. He could understand now why he had never seen her without feeling that his heart went out to her with irresistible force, without an all-powerful attraction, a secret thrill of pride which had its echo in himself. He remembered that, when he first saw her, it seemed to him that her face had always been familiar to him; and when he asked her to explain that miracle, she replied: "Look in the mirror, and you will see that my features placed your own image before you; this resemblance, which Pier-Angelo constantly observed with delight, and which filled my heart with pride, made me tremble for you. Luckily nobody has noticed it, unless possibly the cardinal, who ordered his bearers to stop so that he could look at you, on the day that you arrived in the neighborhood, and, as if guided by an invisible hand, paused at the gate of your ancestor's palace. My uncle was formerly the most suspicious and most keen-eyed of persecutors and despots. Certainly, if he had seen you before he was stricken with paralysis, he would have recognized you and have had you cast into prison, then exiled--perhaps assassinated!--without putting a single question to you. Enfeebled as he was ten days ago, he fastened upon you a glance which aroused the suspicions of Abbé Ninfo, and his memory revived so far as to lead him to inquire your age. Who knows what fatal light might have found its way into his brain, if Providence had not inspired you to answer that you were twenty-one years old instead of eighteen!" "I am eighteen," said Michel, "and you, mother? You seem to me as young as I am." "I am thirty-two," replied Agatha; "didn't you know?"