As the suddenly evoked vision of the treachery restored his energy, he began the letter to Marie's father which should justify his quarrel with his supposititious son, in the eyes of the world; and this new upheaval of resentment neutralized for a moment his misery at that parting. X EPILOGUE In the early days of March of this year, 1907, several of the guests who had taken part, some months' before, in the last hunting dinner that the châtelain of Grandchamp was destined ever to give, were assembled after luncheon in one of the small salons of the hôtel Charlus. There were Florimond de Charlus himself, and his daughter Marie, who had done the honors of the repast, in the absence of her mother, who was perennially ill, to the Sicards and Louis de Bressieux. With the coffee had appeared little de Travers, the too intimate friend of little Madame de Sicard, and the _alter ego_ of her diminutive husband. You will remember the wretched pun on the size and names of the members of this family of three: "The Three Halves." Elzéar de Travers, with his pink pug-nose, his pointed mustache, and his great blue eyes on a level with his face, was a finished exemplar of the peddler of scandal, who runs from club to club, from salon to salon, with a "Have you heard the news?" ordinarily followed by the most insignificant of tales. On the afternoon in question, he did not abandon that habit. "Guess whom I met last night, on his way to England, at the Gare du Nord, where I went to escort Lady Semley, who told me to give you her compliments?"--He turned to Simone de Sicard, who smiled at him.--"Geoffroy de Claviers, who is going there to buy horses!" "Doesn't he think himself sufficiently ruined, for Heaven's sake?" said Sicard. "It seems that with the Jaubourg inheritance and the sale of the pictures and furniture at Grandchamp, he still owes ten millions."