Nothing that had happened had diverted his mind from that obsession: neither the questions asked during the official inquiry, nor the consultations with his counsel, nor his appearance before the judges, nor the manifestations called forth by his act. Expressions of sympathy had come to him by hundreds from every part of France, from superior officers and comrades, even from privates. He had received also a great number of letters and postal cards filled with low-lived insults. This was a proof that the Marquis de Claviers was right, and that the fine gesture of refusal before the door of the church to be burglarized, since it exasperated the enemies of the army, evidently answered a deep-rooted craving of the military conscience. But alas! it was only a gesture, only a pretence. The officer had obeyed a sentiment which none of his admirers or his insulters could even suspect. Praise and criticism affected him no more than other impressions of the external world. Madame Olier's letters alone had discovered the secret of communicating to him a little of their tenderness. He had received one each day. Evidently the dear woman realized that she had hurt him the first day by speaking of M. de Claviers. Never after that, in the course of those chats with pen in hand, did she so much as hint at the marquis's existence. "Somebody has told her about the legacy," was Landri's conclusion, "and she understands." He had guessed aright. Madame Privat, who had come to Paris for Jaubourg's funeral, had paid Valentine a visit. She had told her, with the acerbity of a disinherited relation, about her cousin's will. "You remember what I told you about his passion for Madame de Claviers-Grandchamp? Now he leaves Monsieur de Claviers all his property! Privat insists that he can't see anything wrong. He claims that it's the surest proof that nothing ever happened.--You must confess, my dear friend, that it has an evil look." Madame Olier had made no reply. But her heart had overflowed with pity. She had seen Landri as he was at their last meeting, in turn paralyzed and convulsed by grief, and she had divined the terrible truth. Her affection had assumed a gentler, more caressing phase, across the distance, and on that afternoon preceding his return to Paris, as he bent over that enigmatical despatch, the certain precursor of fresh struggles, the convicted officer, to exorcise his troubles, evoked the image of his only friend, his betrothed and his comforter. "I shall see her to-morrow," he said to himself. "I shall be able to keep the secret that honor commands me to keep, and she will read my heart and pity me. She loves me! _He_ is going to ask me to give her up. I had the strength to resist the first attack. I am sure of having still more against the second.--But is that really what he wants to talk to me about?--What else can it be?"