"He retains it all," Valentine replied. She had taken her husband's hand, and pressed it gently, as if to make the compassion with which she was overflowing pass into his heart to whom she had given her whole life. She saw him bleeding from a deep, deep wound, even in his happiness, and she loved him with a love that was the more profound and passionate therefor. "There is still an hour and a half before we sail," she added. "Let us wait." "Wait?" rejoined Landri. "I have done nothing but that since that horrible moment when he went out of the door without glancing at me, without turning his head. I ought to have gone to his house and asked for him, tried to see him." "Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed. "If only I didn't give you bad advice when I advised you simply to write! I had such a strong belief that we should let him return of his own motion! But I shall hope till the last second. You'll get a letter, a message,--something." They said no more, listening intently to the faintest sounds on the staircase, echoing with the hurried footsteps of the guests of the hotel, where people live after the fashion of a railway station--between the swift ocean steamers like the Cambria, and the boat-trains--"specials" as they are called in England--that run constantly from Liverpool to London and from London to Liverpool. At every such sound Landri had a convulsive shudder which Valentine soothed with a warmer pressure. The steps did not stop at the door, and all the visions of the past two months rushed back into Landri's mind, to increase twofold the craving for another farewell from him whom, in his thoughts, he still called his father. He saw himself once more, leaving the mansion on Rue de Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, after their last, distressing interview, and his quest of a furnished apartment in which to take up his abode for a few weeks. He lived through the days which had followed, when he was arranging the preliminaries of his marriage and his departure, avoiding familiar streets and faces. Several episodes stood out more clearly than the rest: visits to Métivier, one especially, when the notary, gazing at him with such inquisitive eyes, despite professional discretion, had spoken of the sale at Grandchamp--of a chance meeting with Pierre Chaffin, who had turned his face away, an innocent victim of his father's shame;--another with Altona, when the future baron had saluted him with a familiar, almost patronizing, _coup de chapeau_, as from one gentleman to another!