“But who told you all that?  How do you know all that?” cried Constance, who felt full of anxiety.

He waved his arm with a vague, sweeping gesture, as if to take in all the surrounding atmosphere, the whole house.  He knew those things because they were things pertaining to the place, which people had told him of, or which he had guessed.  He could no longer remember exactly how they had reached him.  But he knew them well.

“You understand,” said he, “when one has been in a place for more than thirty years, things end by coming to one naturally.  I know everything, everything.”

Constance started and deep silence fell.  He, with his eyes fixed on the embers, had sunk back into the dolorous past.  She reflected that it was, after all, preferable that the position should be perfectly plain.  Since he was acquainted with everything, it was only needful that she, with all determination and bravery, should utilize him as her docile instrument.

“Alexandre-Honore, the child of Rougemont,” she said.  “Yes! that is the young man whom I have at last found again.  But are you also aware of the steps which I took twelve years ago, when I despaired of finding him, and actually thought him dead?”

Morange nodded affirmatively, and she again went on speaking, relating that she had long since renounced her old plans, when all at once destiny had revealed itself to her.

“Imagine a flash of lightning!” she exclaimed.  “It was on the morning of the day when you found me so moved!  My sister-in-law, Seraphine, who does not call on me four times a year, came here, to my great surprise, at ten o’clock.  She has become very strange, as you are aware, and I did not at first pay any attention to the story which she began to relate to me—­the story of a young man whom she had become acquainted with through some lady—­an unfortunate young man who had been spoilt by bad company, and whom one might save by a little help.  Then what a blow it was, my friend, when she all at once spoke out plainly, and told me of the discovery which she had made by chance.  I tell you, it is destiny awaking and striking!”

The story was indeed curious.  Prematurely aged though she was, Seraphine, amid her growing insanity, continued to lead a wild, rackety life, and the strangest stories were related of her.  A singular caprice of hers, given her own viciousness, was to join, as a lady patroness, a society whose purpose was to succor and moralize young offenders on their release from prison.  And it was in this wise that she had become acquainted with Alexandre-Honore, now a big fellow of two-and-thirty, who had just completed a term of six years’ imprisonment.  He had ended by telling her his true story, speaking of Rougemont, naming Norine his mother, and relating the fruitless efforts that he had made in former years to discover his father, who was some immensely wealthy man.  In the midst of it, Seraphine suddenly understood everything, and in particular why it was that his face had seemed so familiar to her.  His striking resemblance to Beauchene sufficed to throw a vivid light upon the question of his parentage.  For fear of worry, she herself told him nothing, but as she remembered how passionately Constance had at one time striven to find him, she went to her and acquainted her with her discovery.