Madame Olier's prevision was just: that little unthinking gesture, as of a hand extended to prevent a fall, was destined to be one of the signs which should arouse in Landri the most painful of ideas, but not until later. That youthful heart--Valentine had read it accurately in this respect, as well--was too noble not to entertain an instinctive repugnance for suspicion, that calumny of the mind. How could he have made an exception in his mother's case? He had never ascribed a criminal motive, even for a second, nor imagined that any one could ascribe such a motive to the assiduities of one of the intimate friends of their family. The tears that he had shed on Madame de Claviers-Grandchamp's death had been the loving, sincere tears of a son, with no alloy in his veneration. And so, while he returned from Rue Monsieur to Place Saint-François, to get his automobile, no suspicion entered his mind. The imprudent entreaty that his friend had addressed to him not to see the invalid on Rue de Solferino was only a proof of an affection a little too easily disturbed, and he was the more touched by it. "How I love her!" he exclaimed, echoing, and conscious of it, the passionate sigh which she, on her side, was breathing toward him. "And she loves me, too. She fights against it still, but I understood it, I saw it, I know it. I know that she will be my wife.--My wife!" he repeated, with an intimate quiver of his whole being which made him close his eyes. Suddenly Valentine's image brought before his eyes that of his father, and the memory of the undertaking he had entered into abruptly crushed that outburst of joy. "She is right," he said to himself, without transition, mentally repeating the very words that she had used. "I owe it to him to speak both of her and of all the rest. I owe it to him from respect for his noble heart. I will do it."