This sad event brought me cares and duties which I needed to justify me in my own eyes for remaining in the house. I cannot fathom M. Laubépin’s motives for advising me to delay my departure. What did he hope from it? To me he seems to have yielded to a vague presentiment and childish weakness, to which a man of his stamp should never have given way, and to which I also was wrong to submit. Why did he not see that besides bringing additional suffering on me, he put me in a position that is neither manly nor dignified? What am I to do here now? Would they not have good reason to reproach me with trifling with sacred feelings? My first interview with Mlle. Marguerite had shown me how hard and how unbearable was the trial to which I had been condemned. The death of M. Laroque would make our relations easier, and give my presence a sort of propriety. _October 26th, Rennes_. All is over! God, how strong that tie was! How it held my heart, and how it has torn it as it broke! Yesterday evening about nine, as I leaned on my open window, I was surprised to see a faint light coming towards my house through the dark alleys of the park, and from a direction which the servants at the château do not frequent. A moment afterward there was a knock at my door and Mlle. de Porhoët came in breathless. "Cousin," she said, "I have business with you." I looked straight at her. "A misfortune?" I said. "No, it is not precisely that. Besides, you shall judge for yourself. My dear child, you have passed two or three evenings this week at the château. Have you noticed nothing unusual, nothing peculiar, in the attitude of the ladies?" "Nothing." "Have you not even noticed an unusual serenity in their appearance?" "Perhaps I have. Allowing for the melancholy due to their recent sorrow, they seemed calmer and happier than before." "No doubt. Other things would have struck you if, like me, you had lived in daily intimacy with them for fifteen years. Thus, I have observed signs of some secret understanding and mysterious agreement between them. Moreover, their habits have been largely altered. Mme. Laroque has given up her _braséro_, her sentry-box, and all her little Creole fancies. She rises at marvellous hours, and at daybreak instals herself with Marguerite at the work-table. They are both taken with a sudden passion for embroidery, and have ascertained how much a woman can earn at that work in a day. In short, there is a riddle to which I cannot find the answer. But it has been told me, and though I may be intruding on your secrets, I thought it right to inform you at once." I assured Mlle. Porhoët of my absolute confidence in her, and she continued: