La Peyrade was amazed as he listened to an improvisation in which the rare union of inspiration and science opened to his impressionable nature a source of emotions as deep as they were unexpected.  Corentin watched the surprise which from moment to moment the Provencal expressed by admiring exclamations.

“Hein! how she plays!” said the old man.  “Liszt himself hasn’t a firmer touch.”

To a very quick “scherzo” the performer now added the first notes of an “adagio.”

“She is going to sing,” said Corentin, recognizing the air.

“Does she sing too?” asked la Peyrade.

“Like Pasta, like Malibran; but hush, listen to her!”

After a few opening bars in “arpeggio” a vibrant voice resounded, the tones of which appeared to stir the Provencal to the depths of his being.

“How the music moves you!” said Corentin; “you were undoubtedly made for each other.”

“My God! the same air! the same voice!”

“Have you already met Lydie somewhere?” asked the great master of the police.

“I don’t know—­I think not,” answered la Peyrade, in a stammering voice; “in any case, it was long ago—­But that air—­that voice—­I think—­”

“Let us go in,” said Corentin.

Opening the door abruptly, he entered, pulling the young man after him.

Sitting with her back to the door, and prevented by the sound of the piano from hearing what happened behind her, Lydie did not notice their entrance.

“Now have you any remembrance of her?” said Corentin.

La Peyrade advanced a step, and no sooner had he caught a glimpse of the girl’s profile than he threw up his hands above his head, striking them together.

“It is she!” he cried.

Hearing his cry, Lydie turned round, and fixing her attention on Corentin, she said:—­

“How naughty and troublesome you are to come and disturb me; you know very well I don’t like to be listened to.  Ah! but—­” she added, catching sight of la Peyrade’s black coat, “you have brought the doctor; that is very kind of you; I was just going to ask you to send for him.  The baby has done nothing but cry since morning; I was singing to put her to sleep, but nothing can do that.”

And she ran to fetch what she called her child from a corner of the room, where with two chairs laid on their backs and the cushions of the sofa, she had constructed a sort of cradle.

As she went towards la Peyrade, carrying her precious bundle with one hand, with the other she was arranging the imaginary cap of her “little darling,” having no eyes except for the sad creation of her disordered brain.  Step by step, as she advanced, la Peyrade, pale, trembling, and with staring eyes, retreated backwards, until he struck against a seat, into which, losing his equilibrium, he fell.

A man of Corentin’s power and experience, and who, moreover, knew to its slightest detail the horrible drama in which Lydie had lost her reason, had already, of course, taken in the situation, but it suited his purpose and his ideas to allow the clear light of evidence to pierce this darkness.