He did not resist. He pressed her against his chest, kissed her haphazard, on her cheeks, on the hair of the neck, sobbing, stammering, not knowing any more what it was he was crying over, his lost brother or his destroyed happiness. "_Ma chère amie! ma chère amie!_" he faltered, without tiring of tasting the hitherto unknown joy of holding her in his arms. She released herself from his embrace which she considered too long and, after the first words of sympathy, asked him quietly: "Is it true, my dear master, what Mlle. Thérèse has just told me?" "What was that?" M. Raindal said, mopping his eyes. "That you do not want to see me again, that you want to break away from us?" The master did not reply. Once more he burst into tears. "Why don't you want to?" Zozé insisted, as she sat near him on a low stool. "Because...." M. Raindal sobbed out, unable to finish. "Because of what?" Zozé asked, helping him as if he were a schoolboy balking at a confession. "Speak frankly to me.... Am I not your friend?" He contemplated her greedily, with shining eyes where his tears had caused the many little red veins to show more vividly. His words were exhaled rather than spoken: "Because my affection for you has taken a turn ... an unfortunate turn, alas an excessive turn, I might even say a guilty turn...." She tried to evince surprise despite the calm of her face. "How, so, dear master?" "Yes, yes!" he pursued more distinctly, as if relieved by the admission.... "You know it well enough, my dear friend.... You have known it since the day of my departure from Les Frettes, you remember?" He collected his thoughts and shook his head. "Is it not sad and ridiculous at my age, eh?... At my age!... Old and decrepit as I am!... Bah! it is not your fault.... I bear you no grudge.... But, I beg of you, don't come here again.... Leave me alone.... Let me cure myself, if I can!... It will be more charitable!" Almost the same words that Thérèse had used, an instant before and, indeed, almost the same tone! Mme. Chambannes, who was, at bottom, not heartless, felt herself thoroughly upset. "Good-by, then, dear master!" she sighed, and offered her hand to M. Raindal. "Good-by, my dear friend!" said the master, whose face was twisted with pain. Passionately he pressed to his lips her little black-gloved hand, truly a hand of funerals and eternal parting. "Good-by, good-by, since you wish it!" Mme. Chambannes repeated. "No, I do not _wish_ it!" M. Raindal specified. "I _must_ wish it!" She passed out, disappeared on the stairs, with her cadenced gait that the master so much admired. "It was necessary!" he said aloud, when the door was closed. Returning to his room, he evoked famous parting scenes, historic adieux: Titus and Berenice, the _Dimisit Invitus_ ... and also Louis XIV and Marie Mancini.