The young man took him by the shoulders and pushed him back.

“Are you mad?” he asked.  “What do you want?  Go on your way immediately, or I shall give you a thrashing!”

“What do I want?” replied Parent.  “I want to tell you who these people are.”

George, however, was in a rage, and shook him; and was even going to strike him.

“Let me go,” said Parent.  “I am your father.  There, see whether they recognize me now, the wretches!”

The young man, thunderstruck, unclenched his fists and turned toward his mother.  Parent, as soon as he was released, approached her.

“Well,” he said, “tell him yourself who I am!  Tell him that my name is Henri Parent, that I am his father because his name is George Parent, because you are my wife, because you are all three living on my money, on the allowance of ten thousand francs which I have made you since I drove you out of my house.  Will you tell him also why I drove you out?  Because I surprised you with this beggar, this wretch, your lover!  Tell him what I was, an honorable man, whom you married for money, and whom you deceived from the very first day.  Tell him who you are, and who I am——­”

He stammered and gasped for breath in his rage.  The woman exclaimed in a heartrending voice: 

“Paul, Paul, stop him; make him be quiet!  Do not let him say this before my son!”

Limousin had also risen to his feet.  He said in a very low voice:  “Hold your tongue!  Hold your tongue!  Do you understand what you are doing?”

“I quite know what I am doing,” resumed Parent, “and that is not all.  There is one thing that I will know, something that has tormented me for twenty years.”  Then, turning to George, who was leaning against a tree in consternation, he said: 

“Listen to me.  When she left my house she thought it was not enough to have deceived me, but she also wanted to drive me to despair.  You were my only consolation, and she took you with her, swearing that I was not your father, but, that he was your father.  Was she lying?  I do not know.  I have been asking myself the question for the last twenty years.”  He went close up to her, tragic and terrible, and, pulling away her hands, with which she had covered her face, he continued: 

“Well, now!  I call upon you to tell me which of us two is the father of this young man; he or I, your husband or your lover.  Come!  Come! tell us.”

Limousin rushed at him.  Parent pushed him back, and, sneering in his fury, he said:  “Ah! you are brave now!  You are braver than you were that day when you ran downstairs because you thought I was going to murder you.  Very well!  If she will not reply, tell me yourself.  You ought to know as well as she.  Tell me, are you this young fellow’s father?  Come!  Come!  Tell me!”

He turned to his wife again.  “If you will not tell me, at any rate tell your son.  He is a man, now, and he has the right to know who his father is.  I do not know, and I never did know, never, never!  I cannot tell you, my boy.”