Parent lived alone, quite alone.  During the five weeks that followed their separation, the feeling of surprise at his new life, prevented him from thinking much.  He had resumed his bachelor life, his habits of lounging about, and he took his meals at a restaurant, as he had done formerly.  As he had wished to avoid any scandal, he made his wife an allowance, which was settled by their lawyers.  By degrees, however, the thoughts of the child began to haunt him.  Often, when he was at home alone at night, he suddenly thought he heard George calling out papa, and his heart used to begin to beat, and he got up quickly and opened the door to see whether, by chance, the child might have returned, like dogs or pigeons do.  Why should a child have less instinct than an animal?

After finding that he was mistaken, he went and sat down in his armchair again and thought of the boy, and he thought of him for hours, and whole days.  It was not only a moral, but still more a physical obsession, a nervous longing to kiss him, to hold and fondle him, to take him onto his knees and dance him.  He felt the child’s little arms round his neck, his little mouth pressing a kiss on his beard, his soft hair tickling his cheeks, and the remembrance of all those childish ways, made him suffer like the desire for some beloved woman, who has run away, and then twenty or a hundred times a day he asked himself the question, whether he was or was not George’s father, and at night, especially, he indulged in interminable speculations on the point, and almost before he was in bed, he every night recommenced the same series of despairing arguments.

After his wife’s departure, he had at first not felt the slightest doubt; certainly the child was Limousin’s, but by degrees he began to waver.  Henriette’s words could not be of any value.  She had merely braved him, and tried to drive him to desperation, and calmly weighing the pros and cons, there seemed to be every chance that she had lied, though perhaps only Limousin could tell the truth.  But how was he to find it out, how could he question him or persuade him to confess the real facts?

Sometimes Parent would get up in the middle of the night, fully determined to go and see Limousin and to beg him, to offer him anything he wanted, to put an end to this intolerable misery.  Then he went back to bed in despair, reflecting that her lover would also lie, no doubt!  He would be even sure to lie, in order to prevent him from taking away the child, if he were really his father.  What could he do, then?  Absolutely nothing!