M. Deshoulieres came and sat down by her. There was the same kindness in his eyes, if only Therese had looked at them, but his voice was a little quick and peremptory. He had no time to waste in unnecessary words. "Is there really nothing more that you can tell me about Monsieur Saint-Martin?" he asked. "Nothing of the present," said Therese, slowly. "Well, of the past, then?" "What did you hear at Ardron?" "Nothing." "Ah, that is no wonder," said Therese, speaking with a little more animation. "The people at Ardron scarcely know Fabien; we have been there such a little time, you see. We used to live at Rouen--my uncle, my aunt, Fabien, and I. Fabien has always lived with them; my uncle loved him better than any one else in the world. I went to Rouen when my father and mother died, that was eleven years ago," said Therese, considering; "I was nine years old and Fabien was fourteen." "And your aunt took you?" "Yes. Poor aunt Ferdinande! she tried to be kind; and my uncle was generous--very generous. He despised women, though, monsieur, and he never professed to like me. Is it not strange that, after all, I should have been the only one left to him now?" She spoke in a questioning dreamy sort of way, clasping her hands over her knee, and looking out of the window at the dropping rain. There was a certain easy grace in her attitude, in the curves of her figure, in the poise of her head. Monsieur Deshoulieres was not noticing it, he glanced at the timepiece instead and fidgeted. "Then, as I understand, M. Moreau intended his nephew to enter his house at Rouen?" he asked. "Oh, he had entered it," Therese cried quickly; "he had entered and was doing admirably when--" "Well, when--?" "--They had a disagreement." "Ah, a disagreement. On matters connected with money?" M. Deshoulieres thought he was pursuing the examination with great skill; he did not notice the troubled appealing glance which poor Therese threw at him before answering slowly,-- "Not altogether." "On business, then? It is much the same thing. Five-eighths of the world permit such matters to wreck their lives. And so the old man was angry, and M. Saint-Martin went off in a headstrong fit?" Poor Therese wanted very much to tell her little story--the old, old story--more commonplace even than M. Deshoulieres', yet so new, so beautiful, in her eyes. But how could she? He was so terribly prompt and abrupt, he would not see what she meant, would not help her, his quick manner frightened her, her education had taught her reserve, she needed sympathy to draw out little by little what it was so hard to say in words; after all, it was not necessary that she should relate her share in the matter. She said, sighing,--"The two disagreed, monsieur, as you say." "And so the young man acted in this wise fashion?"