Chaffin was profoundly preoccupied, and very anxious as he followed the footman who was instructed to usher him into Landri's presence. He would have been even more so if he had glanced through the windows of the long glass gallery that surrounded the courtyard of the hôtel. His legs, trembling already, would have refused further service. He certainly would not have crossed the threshold of the room where his former pupil awaited him. At the very moment when he was proceeding thus toward an interview of decisive importance to him, the small door on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, through which visitors on foot were admitted, opened in response to an impatient ring, and Pierre appeared. His arrival thus on his father's heels, in view of the circumstances under which the two men had parted, was a threat well calculated to check the flow of blood in the unfaithful steward's veins. He had hastened thither to implore a compassion which his son's presence would render unavailing. That implacable Fate, of which Landri had been the craftsman, unwitting at first, then terrified by its working out, continued its work. But what is this Fate if not the internal logic of life, so well summed up, in the words of the poet: "We are the masters of our first step. We are the slaves of the second." This force which thus compels all the consequences of crime is not distinguishable from it. We could not help committing a crime. Once committed it holds us fast. Our very precautions serve only to hasten our punishment. It overtakes us alike through our prudences and our imprudences, through those who love us and those who hate us and those even to whom we are indifferent, so inevitably do our sins unfold their results according to a mathematical ratio. Landri's visit to Pierre Chaffin was a perfectly natural result of the peculations committed by the steward of the Claviers estate, and that visit had produced this other no less natural result: the doctor had questioned his father. When Chaffin returned to the house on Quai de Béthune on the preceding day, his son opened the door, anticipating his ring, a sign that he had been at the window watching for his return. "I was waiting for you," he said. "Let us go into my study. I have something to say to you, at once." "What's going on?" queried Chaffin. As he asked the question his glance expressed more terror than surprise. This singular fact did not escape Pierre. He was conscious of the false ring in the newcomer's laughter as he added, with an impertinent allusion to the very advanced opinions professed by the physician: "There's no question of an anarchist plot, is there? For I am as much of a radical as you please, but still, you know, a landed proprietor."