“Lormerin is still alive!”

And he went into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited him.

On his table, where everything had its place, the work table of the gentleman who never works, there were a dozen letters lying beside three newspapers of different opinions.  With a single touch he spread out all these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a card; and he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before opening the envelopes.

It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague anxiety.  What did these sealed mysterious letters bring him?  What did they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief?  He surveyed them with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the writing, selecting them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from them.  Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent; further on, strangers.  The last kind always gave him a little uneasiness.  What did they want from him?  What hand had traced those curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?

This day one letter in particular caught his eye.  It was simple, nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart.  He thought:  “From whom can it be?  I certainly know this writing, and yet I can’t identify it.”

He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between two fingers, striving to read through the envelope, without making up his mind to open it.

Then he smelled it, and snatched up from the table a little magnifying glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting.  He suddenly felt unnerved.  “Whom is it from?  This hand is familiar to me, very familiar.  I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often.  But this must have been a long, long time ago.  Whom the deuce can it be from?  Pooh! it’s only somebody asking for money.”

And he tore open the letter.  Then he read: 

My dear friend:  You have, without doubt, forgotten me, for it is now twenty-five years since we saw each other.  I was young; I am old.  When I bade you farewell, I left Paris in order to follow into the provinces my husband, my old husband, whom you used to call “my hospital.”  Do you remember him?  He died five years ago, and now I am returning to Paris to get my daughter married, for I have a daughter, a beautiful girl of eighteen, whom you have never seen.  I informed you of her birth, but you certainly did not pay much attention to so trifling an event.

   You are still the handsome Lormerin; so I have been told.  Well, if
   you still recollect little Lise, whom you used to call Lison, come
   and dine with her this evening, with the elderly Baronne de Vance
   your ever faithful friend, who, with some emotion, although happy,
   reaches out to you a devoted hand, which you must clasp, but no
   longer kiss, my poor Jaquelet. 
                    Lise de Vance.