When Maurice arrived in Paris, on the second morning after his departure from Brest, and it was vouchsafed to his mother to clasp in her arms the son she had thought gone from her for ever, her joy can only be pictured by those to whom it has been given to taste an unhoped-for happiness. Maurice, too, was happy; but still, after the first emotions of such a meeting, Madame de Serres' keenly observant glance detected in her son's face a strange expression of melancholy, and an air of abstraction in his replies to her anxious questions, which at once aroused all her solicitude. Alarmed at his singular demeanour, she tenderly pressed him to confide to her the cause of his sadness, that she might at least attempt to soothe and console him. "It is nothing, mother," he said, with an effort to smile, "merely a childish folly, of which a man should be ashamed; but since you imagine that there is some serious cause for my ill-timed depression, I must do my best to reassure you, though I fear you will only laugh at me." "No, no, my son, I shall not laugh, whatever it may be," replied Madame de Serres. "Explain yourself fully, Maurice, and trust my good sense to make all due allowances." "Very well, mother," was the answer, "you shall know the exact truth. On my way home this morning, I passed before the church of St. Roch, the entire front of which was heavily hung with black, and decorated for the funeral of some person of note. Such a circumstance, I am aware, is of every-day occurrence in Paris, and would not likely attract the attention of an indifferent passerby. But upon me the sight of those mournful preparations had a strange and mystic effect, which seemed to chill my blood, and imbued me with a presentiment of evil. I feared--ah! you are smiling at my superstitious weakness, and you are right. But three years of captivity and horrible sufferings have so unstrung me that my restoration to liberty and home seems a miraculous dream, and I tremble to awake lest I should indeed find it to be only a vision after all." "My dear Maurice," said his mother, imprinting a kiss on his brow, "let this convince you that it is no dream. The feelings you have described to me I can well understand, and they prove that you cling strongly to your recovered happiness, since you tremble lest it may again be snatched from you by relentless destiny. You must try to forget the trials of the past, and accustom yourself to the present, as if you had never known what it is to suffer. As for your mournful impression at the sight of a church hung with black, you have been so long absent from France that a very ordinary occurrence seems invested with a significance it really does not possess, except for those who have sustained the loss of a dear relative or friend. The funeral decorations you saw this morning were no doubt in honour of the young and beautiful Madame du Bourg, wife of the President du Bourg, chief judge of the Civil Tribunal of Paris."