“Pshaw!” said M. Lubin in a knowing tone; “you will see him come out of it as white as snow.  These rich men can do anything.”

“Anyhow,” said the cook, “I’d willingly give a month’s wages to be a mouse, and to listen to what the count and the tall dark fellow are talking about.  Suppose some one went up and tried to find out what is going on.”

This proposition did not meet with the least favour.  The servants knew by experience that, on important occasions, spying was worse than useless.

M. de Commarin knew all about servants from infancy.  His study was, therefore, a shelter from all indiscretion.  The sharpest ear placed at the keyhole could hear nothing of what was going on within, even when the master was in a passion, and his voice loudest.  One alone, Denis, the count’s valet, had the opportunity of gathering information; but he was well paid to be discreet, and he was so.

At this moment, M. de Commarin was sitting in the same arm-chair on which the evening before he had bestowed such furious blows while listening to Albert.

As soon as he left his carriage, the old nobleman recovered his haughtiness.  He became even more arrogant in his manner, than he had been humble when before the magistrate, as though he were ashamed of what he now considered an unpardonable weakness.

He wondered how he could have yielded to a momentary impulse, how his grief could have so basely betrayed him.

At the remembrance of the avowals wrested from him by a sort of delirium, he blushed, and reproached himself bitterly.  The same as Albert, the night before, Noel, having fully recovered himself, stood erect, cold as marble, respectful, but no longer humble.

The father and son exchanged glances which had nothing of sympathy nor friendliness.

They examined one another, they almost measured each other, much as two adversaries feel their way with their eyes before encountering with their weapons.

“Sir,” said the count at length in a harsh voice, “henceforth this house is yours.  From this moment you are the Viscount de Commarin; you regain possession of all the rights of which you were deprived.  Listen, before you thank me.  I wish, at once, to relieve you of all misunderstanding.  Remember this well, sir; had I been master of the situation, I would never have recognised you:  Albert should have remained in the position in which I placed him.”

“I understand you, sir,” replied Noel.  “I don’t think that I could ever bring myself to do an act like that by which you deprived me of my birthright; but I declare that, if I had the misfortune to do so, I should afterwards have acted as you have.  Your rank was too conspicuous to permit a voluntary acknowledgment.  It was a thousand times better to suffer an injustice to continue in secret, than to expose the name to the comments of the malicious.”

This answer surprised the count, and very agreeably too.  But he wouldn’t let his satisfaction be seen, and it was in a still harsher voice that he resumed.