The sight reassured and comforted her. Behind this thin barrier dwelt those dearest to her on earth, the dimly remembered saintly mother, the wise and tender father. She forgot the squalor of the environment. It was merely a feature of Paris mighty and inscrutable, so different from Brantôme. She felt a little throb of pride in her daring, in her achievement. Without guidance—ungenerously she took no account of the sergent de ville, the cabman and the concierge—she had travelled from Chartres to this inmost heart of Paris. She had accomplished her stupendous adventure. . . . The card invited her to ring. Above it hung a bit of wood attached in the middle to a length of twine. She pulled and an answering clang was heard from within the apartment. Her whole being vibrated. After a moment’s waiting, the door was flung open by a coarse, red-faced, slatternly woman standing in a poverty-stricken little vestibule. She looked at the girl with curiously glazed eyes and slightly swayed as she put up a hand to dishevelled hair. “_Vous désirez?_” “Monsieur Fortinbras,” gasped Félise, scared by the abominable apparition. “Monsieur Fortinbras?” She mimicked the girl’s clear accent. “_Oui, madame_,” replied Félise. Whereupon the woman withered her with a sudden volley of drunken abuse. She knew how Fortinbras occupied himself all day long. She did not complain. But when the _gonzesses_ of the _rive gauche_ had the indecency to come to his house, she would very soon put them across her knee and teach them manners. This is but a paraphrase of what fell upon Félise’s terror-stricken ears. It fell like an avalanche; but it did not last long, for suddenly came a voice well known but pitched in an unfamiliar key of anger: “_Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?_” And Fortinbras appeared. As he caught sight of his daughter’s white face, he clapped his hands to his head and reeled back, horror in his eyes. Then: “_Tais-toi!_” he thundered, and seizing the woman masterfully by the arms, he pushed her into some inner room, leaving Félise shaking on the threshold. In a moment or two he re-appeared, caught overcoat and old silk hat from a peg, and motioning Félise back, marched out of his home and slammed the door behind him. Father and daughter were now in the neutral ground at the end of the dim, malodorous passage. “What in the name of God are you doing here, Félise?” “I came to see my mother.” The fleshy, benign face of the man fell into the sags of old age. His lower lip hung loose. His mild blue eyes, lamping out from beneath noble brows, stared agony. “Your mother?” “Yes. Where is she?” He drew a deep breath. “Your mother—well—she is in a nursing home, dear. No one, not even I, can see her.” He took her by the arm and hurried her to the staircase. “Come, come, dear, we must get away from this. You understand. I did not tell you your mother was so ill, for fear of making you unhappy.”