"Oh! that's a very strange thing," said Gilberte, lowering her voice confidentially, "but I may speak to you about it, Monsieur Emile, because it seems to me that you may be able to solve the mystery. My father was very intimate with Monsieur de Boisguilbault in his younger days. I know that much, although he never speaks of him, and Janille avoids answering me when I question her; but Jean, who knows no more than I do about the cause of their rupture, has often told me that he can remember a time when they were inseparable. That is what has always made me think that Monsieur de Boisguilbault is neither so proud nor so cold as he seems; for my father with his good humor and vivacity could never have been on warm terms with a haughty disposition and a cold heart. I must tell you too that I have overheard some conversation about him between my father and Janille, when they thought that I was not listening. My father said that the only irreparable misfortune of his life was the loss of Monsieur de Boisguilbault's friendship, that he should never be consoled for it, and that he would not hesitate to sacrifice an eye or an arm or a leg to recover it. Janille called his lamentations nonsense and advised him not to make the slightest step toward reconciliation because she knew the man well and he would never forget the affair that had made the trouble between them. "'Very well,' said my father, 'I would prefer to have an explanation, to submit to his reproaches; I would rather have fought a duel with him, when we were of almost equal strength, than have to endure this implacable silence and frigid persistence which cuts me to the heart. No, Janille, no, I shall never be reconciled to it, and if I die without shaking hands with him, I shall regret that I ever lived.' "Janille tried to divert his mind, and she succeeded, for my father is impressionable and too affectionate to be willing to depress others with his melancholy. But you, Monsieur Emile, who love your parents so dearly, will understand that this secret grief of my father's has weighed heavily on my heart ever since I discovered it. So that I can think of nothing that I would not undertake to relieve him from it. For a whole year I have been thinking about it constantly, and twenty times I have dreamed that I went to Boisguilbault, threw myself at that unforgiving man's feet and said to him: "'My father is the best of men and your most faithful friend. His virtues have made him happy in spite of his ill-fortune; he has but one sorrow, but it is a deep one and you can dispel it with a word.' "But he repulsed me and turned me out of his house in a rage. I woke in deadly terror, and one night when I called his name, Janille got up and took me in her arms and said: "'Why do you think about that wretched man? he has no power over you and he wouldn't dare attack your father.'