But did Landri himself suspect to what sort of an interview he was proceeding when, at the appointed hour, he went down from his apartment to the library, where M. de Claviers had sent word that he was awaiting him? That large, high-studded room was on the same level with the garden, which was fresh and bright-colored in summer, but so severely bare and leafless on that dark December morning. The gloomy setting was only too appropriate to the words that were to be exchanged there. The marquis was standing in front of the vast fireplace, with his back to the fire, whose bright flame twined about a veritable tree-trunk. It was another of the old nobleman's manias, that huge fire of the olden time. Standing before that monumental chimneypiece, he was himself at that moment, despite his modern costume, more of an "ancient portrait" than ever. But it was the portrait of one who was living through hours of frightful martyrdom. The master of the hunt of the forest of Hez, whose tall erect figure Landri had so admired in the group of sportsmen watching the kill, was scarcely fifty years of age, despite the sixty-five years that the genealogical tree of the Claviers-Grandchamps gave him. The head of the family, who was at that moment awaiting the heir to his name in the immense room lined with wainscotings and books, was an old man. His ruddy complexion mottled with white spots, his heavy eyelids, the wrinkles on his brow, told the story of the long sleepless nights of those four weeks. The jovial gleam of his deep blue eyes was replaced by an expression of feverish ardor, wherein one could divine his secret agony--at that moment! For the undiminished pride of the whole physiognomy said plainly enough that the nobleman had not surrendered, and that before any other witness he would have found a way to conceal his wound. What was the wound? To know, Landri had no need to question him. What he had foreseen had happened. M. de Claviers suspected the truth. To what extent? How had he been warned? The young man instinctively collected all his strength, in order to undergo without faltering an interview in which his own secret might escape him. He was about to realize once more the superiority of Race, and what a powerful and resolute character it bestows upon its authentic representatives.