Since that time he had been living, solitary and retired, in his mansion on the Île Saint-Louis, situated at the extremity of the island, almost opposite the mansion of the Lamberts. His wife had died young. Some secret drama, the wound from which still remained unhealed, probably added to the gloom of the judge's grave countenance. He was already the father of a girl of eight, Renée, when his wife expired on giving birth to a second daughter. This latter, who was named Christine, was taken care of by a sister of Monsieur Béraud Du Châtel's, the wife of Aubertot the notary. Renée was sent to a convent. Madame Aubertot, who had no child of her own, was filled with quite a maternal affection for Christine, whom she brought up herself. Her husband dying, she took the little one back to her father, and remained between the silent old man and his smiling fair-haired daughter. Renée was forgotten at her school. During the holidays she filled the house with such an uproar that her aunt heaved a great sigh of relief when she at length escorted her back to the ladies of the Visitation, where the child had been a boarder since she was eight years old. She did not leave the convent for good until she was nineteen, and then she went to pass the summer at the home of her friend Adeline, whose parents owned a beautiful estate in the Nivernais. When she came back in October, her Aunt Élisabeth was surprised to find her very grave and profoundly sad. One evening she discovered her stifling her sobs in the pillow, writhing on her bed in an attack of mad grief. In the misery of her despair the child told her a most heart-rending story: a man of forty, rich, married, and whose wife, a young and charming person, was also staying at the house, had violated her during her visit in the country, without her daring or knowing how to defend herself. This confession terrified Aunt Élisabeth; she accused herself, as though she had felt she were an accomplice; she regretted her preference for Christine, and could not help thinking that, if she had also kept Renée beside her, the poor child would not have succumbed. Henceforward, to drive away that bitter remorse which her tender nature still further exaggerated, she did her best to sustain the erring one; she bore the brunt of the father's anger when they both apprised him of the horrible truth by the very excess of their precautions; in the bewilderment of her solicitude she invented that strange project of marriage which to her idea was to arrange everything, appease the father and rehabilitate Renée, and the shamefulness and fatal consequences of which she was unwilling to see.