"Never fear," said Emile, "matters have not reached that point and never will, I trust. Monsieur de Boisguilbault is not ill; he has the full enjoyment of all his faculties. His monomania, if we may so describe his professed repulsion for your family, is not a new disease; only, finding that strange freak in a man so tranquil and tolerant in all other respects, I believed for a long while that there must be some serious reasons for it, and I am forced to admit now that there are none; that it is a streak of temporary madness, which he will forget if it is not stirred up again, and that you are not the sole object of it, since other persons, of whom he has never had any reason to complain, and whom he does not know at all, inspire the same unhealthy feeling of horror and repulsion." "Explain yourself," said Monsieur Antoine, beginning to breathe once more; "who are these other persons?" "Why, Jean, for one," replied Emile. "You know very well that he has no reason to dread his presence as he does, and that excellent man is entirely at sea as to any possible cause of ill-will the marquis can have toward him." "He has no reason to reproach him, nor anyone else; but I know very well what he imagines. Go on! if Jean is the only other one, the marquis is not mad in the least degree, he is simply unjust or mistaken as to our friend the carpenter. But it is as impossible to convince him of his mistake as to close the wound that is bleeding in his heart. Poor Boisguilbault! Ah! Gilberte, I would gladly sacrifice my life to enable him to forget the past. Let us say no more about it." "One word more," said Gilberte, "for that word will enlighten you, father. Jean Jappeloup is not the only one whom the marquis detests so bitterly; he has the same feeling against me, whom he has hardly seen, who have never spoken to him, and of whom he most assuredly can have no reason to complain. Upon mentioning my name, with the purpose of calming him, Monsieur Cardonnet, who will tell you so himself, found that his anger sprang up afresh, and he slammed the door, shouting, as if he had heard the name of a mortal enemy: "'Woe to you if you ever mention that _demoiselle_ to me!'" Monsieur de Châteaubrun hung his head and sat for some moments without speaking. Several times he wiped the perspiration from his broad brow with his coarse blue and white handkerchief. Then he took Gilberte's hand and Emile's in his, unconsciously placing them so that they touched, so engrossed was he by every other subject except the possibility of their love.