“It was about six o’clock in the evening.  I sat down to dinner, and as the host was assiduous in waiting on me himself, fate, no doubt, impelled me to say: 

“’Did you know the former proprietors of this house?  I spent about ten days here thirty years ago.  I am talking old times.’

“‘Those were my parents, monsieur,’ he replied.

“Then I told him why we had stayed over at that time, how my comrade had been delayed by illness.  He did not let me finish.

“’Oh, I recollect perfectly.  I was about fifteen or sixteen.  You slept in the room at the end and your friend in the one I have taken for myself, overlooking the street.’

“It was only then that the recollection of the little maid came vividly to my mind.  I asked:  ’Do you remember a pretty little servant who was then in your father’s employ, and who had, if my memory does not deceive me, pretty eyes and fresh-looking teeth?’

“‘Yes, monsieur; she died in childbirth some time after.’

“And, pointing to the courtyard where a thin, lame man was stirring up the manure, he added: 

“‘That is her son.’

“I began to laugh: 

“’He is not handsome and does not look much like his mother.  No doubt he looks like his father.’

“‘That is very possible,’ replied the innkeeper; ’but we never knew whose child it was.  She died without telling any one, and no one here knew of her having a beau.  Every one was hugely astonished when they heard she was enceinte, and no one would believe it.’

“A sort of unpleasant chill came over me, one of those painful surface wounds that affect us like the shadow of an impending sorrow.  And I looked at the man in the yard.  He had just drawn water for the horses and was carrying two buckets, limping as he walked, with a painful effort of his shorter leg.  His clothes were ragged, he was hideously dirty, with long yellow hair, so tangled that it looked like strands of rope falling down at either side of his face.

“‘He is not worth much,’ continued the innkeeper; ’we have kept him for charity’s sake.  Perhaps he would have turned out better if he had been brought up like other folks.  But what could one do, monsieur?  No father, no mother, no money!  My parents took pity on him, but he was not their child, you understand.’

“I said nothing.

“I slept in my old room, and all night long I thought of this frightful stableman, saying to myself:  ’Supposing it is my own son?  Could I have caused that girl’s death and procreated this being?  It was quite possible!’

“I resolved to speak to this man and to find out the exact date of his birth.  A variation of two months would set my doubts at rest.

“I sent for him the next day.  But he could not speak French.  He looked as if he could not understand anything, being absolutely ignorant of his age, which I had inquired of him through one of the maids.  He stood before me like an idiot, twirling his hat in ’his knotted, disgusting hands, laughing stupidly, with something of his mother’s laugh in the corners of his mouth and of his eyes.