Monsieur de Boisguilbault expected his young friend all the following day, and he became exceedingly anxious at night, when he did not appear. The marquis had become deeply attached to Emile. While he did not express himself nearly so strongly as he felt, he could no longer do without his society. He was immensely grateful to the noble-hearted boy whom his cold and melancholy nature had never repelled, and who, after obstinately persisting in reading his heart, had religiously kept the promise he had made of being a devoted son to him. This dismal old man, who was reputed to be such a terrible bore, and who, through discouragement, exaggerated in his own mind his involuntary faults, had found a friend when he made up his mind that there was nothing left for him to do but to die alone and unregretted. Emile had almost reconciled him to life, and sometimes he abandoned himself to a sweet illusion of paternity, when he saw that young man make himself at home in his house, share his dismal amusements, arrange his library, turn the leaves of his books, ride his horses, and sometimes even attend to matters of business for him, in order to relieve him of a particularly tedious duty; in short, take his ease under his roof and in his company, as if nature and the habit of a whole lifetime had neutralized the difference in their ages and their tastes. The old man had continued for a long time to have occasional fits of distrust, and he had tried to make Emile fit in with his curious misanthropic theories, but he had not succeeded. After he had passed three days trying to persuade himself that idleness or curiosity had brought him this new guest, with the thirst for serious conversation and philosophical discussion, when he saw that amiable face, expansive and ingenuous in its fearless expression, appear in his solitude, he felt that hope appeared with it, and he surprised himself in the very act of loving, at the risk of being more unhappy than ever when doubt returned. In a word, after passing his whole life, especially the last twenty years, in guarding against emotions which he deemed himself incapable of sharing, he fell under their dominion, and could not endure the thought of being deprived of them. He wandered, in feverish agitation, through all the avenues of his park, waited at all the gates, sighing with every step, starting at the slightest sound, and at last, depressed beyond measure by that silence and that solitude, heart-broken at the thought that Emile was contending with a sorrow which he could not lighten, he went out into the road and turned in the direction of Gargilesse, still hoping to see a black horse coming toward him.