In fact the Monday was not to pass before he was fully informed and found himself face to face with another problem of conscience, more painful perhaps than those of the preceding days. Tragedy engenders tragedy, by virtue of a law in which consists the hidden moral of this too truthful narrative of private life. It rarely happens that this is not the consequence of one of those deep-rooted sins whose expiation survives the person who committed it. It is one of the forms of that transmission of sin, whereof it has been said with much truth that nothing is more distasteful to us, and that "notwithstanding, but for this, the most incomprehensible of all mysteries, we should be incomprehensible to ourselves." During the afternoon of Monday, then, Landri was alone in his salon, apparently occupied in reading, but in reality absorbed in one of those fits of melancholy meditation of which he had undergone so many during the past week, and would, he felt, undergo so many more in the months and years to come! The sound of the bell announcing a visitor roused him from his abstraction. "They're coming to notify me of the inquiry," he thought; "so much the better!" He heard his servant go to open the door, and in a moment a loud voice reached his ears and made him jump to his feet. That imperious accent, that tone of command--it was M. de Claviers fighting against the order of seclusion. "But I am his father!" he said. "I tell you, I'm his father! A father has a right to see his son, it seems to me, and I will see him.--However, here he is." Landri had, in fact, come out of the salon, completely upset by his father's arrival. He was too familiar with the marquis's indomitable will not to know that he would throw the orderly aside, with his still powerful hands, rather than go away. "Ah! I see you at last, my dear, my son!" He took the young man in his arms and pressed him to his heart, repeating passionately: "My son! my son! At last I can say to you what I wrote so badly and briefly! The pen and I are not on the best of terms since my eyes began to fail. I feel my age. But not in my heart; and that old heart leaped with joy and pride when I read your letter. Yes, I am happy. Yes, I am proud. I should have come Saturday, but I had to see Métivier about some tiresome business matters,--I'll tell you about it,--and again yesterday, although it was Sunday. This morning I read in a newspaper that there is talk of putting you under arrest in a fortress. 'Not before I have embraced him,' I said to myself, and I did as I did the other day, when I went to see poor Charles,--I jumped into the train. I shall return to-night, and I shall be in Paris in good time for my appointment with Métivier. For that business isn't finished yet. Just fancy--But later, later. Let's talk about you. Are you well? Let me look at you. A little thin and pale." "That's because I don't go out," the young man replied. "I am in strict confinement."