He bent his steps to Valentine's house, to seek in her soft eyes, in her dear smile, in her loved presence, strength to endure this test, the end of which it was not for him to fix. Would he question her, as M. de Claviers had not hesitated to advise him to do? To learn what? That the disinherited relations had told her of Jaubourg's will, and that she had drawn therefrom a conclusion only too evident to one already informed? That she was informed, Landri knew only too well. In the long solitary meditations of his weeks of arrest at Saint-Mihiel, he had succeeded in piecing together the whole story, and in understanding why the Privats had always treated him with a coolness which he had noticed only at a distance.--Yes, what was the use of trying to learn anything more? If it were the Privats from whom the anonymous letter came, Valentine did not know it, and what purpose would it serve to introduce her to such villainy? True lovers have a passionate and rapturous respect for that fine flower of delicacy and of illusion which constitutes the spotless charm of the feminine heart, when it has not been prematurely brutalized by the blighting realities of life. This sentiment alone would have deterred Landri from questioning his sweetheart, even if he had not felt a sort of spasm of horror at the thought of accusing his mother to her. Silence is the pious charity of the son to whom reverence is forbidden. And then, too, even if he had essayed to speak, the young woman would have arrested the blasphemous words on his lips. He had no sooner crossed the threshold of the little salon on Rue Monsieur, where she awaited him, than from the glance with which she greeted him he became aware that she too dreaded a painful explanation. And how could he mar the delight of their meeting by such a hideous disclosure, finding her as he found her, so youthful and lovely, still in black--although the approaching end of her mourning could already be detected! Valentine wore a gown of crêpe de Chine and lace, the soft fabrics admirably in harmony with the slender grace of her whole person. On her neck a string of pearls glistened softly, a bunch of violets bloomed at her waist, and on the light curls of her ash-colored hair was a _torsade_ of black tulle. It was, as it were, the rebirth of the woman,--those jewels and flowers, and that evident yet artless desire to please which imparted a flush as of a rose-petal to her thin cheeks, a gleam to her blue eyes, a quiver to her smile. She had her son with her, and was feverishly smoothing his hair, of a golden shade like the pale gold of her own. She pushed him gently toward Landri as he entered the room, as if he were a symbol of the union of which she dreamed--a union in which nothing of the child's happiness should be sacrificed, in which he should always remain with her and his second father.