“Well,” said the doctor, “how is the liqueur getting on?”

The Pole explained that four of the chief cafes in the town had agreed to have it on sale, and that two papers, the Northcoast Pharos and the Havre Semaphore, would advertise it, in return for certain chemical preparations to be supplied to the editors.

After a long silence Marowsko asked whether Jean had come definitely into possession of his fortune; and then he put two or three other questions vaguely referring to the same subject.  His jealous devotion to Pierre rebelled against this preference.  And Pierre felt as though he could hear him thinking; he guessed and understood, read in his averted eyes and in the hesitancy of his tone, the words which rose to his lips but were not spoken—­which the druggist was too timid or too prudent and cautious to utter.

At this moment, he felt sure, the old man was thinking:  “You ought not to have suffered him to accept this inheritance which will make people speak ill of your mother.”

Perhaps, indeed, Marowsko believed that Jean was Marechal’s son.  Of course he believed it!  How could he help believing it when the thing must seem so possible, so probable, self-evident?  Why, he himself, Pierre, her son—­had not he been for these three days past fighting with all the subtlety at his command to cheat his reason, fighting against this hideous suspicion?

And suddenly the need to be alone, to reflect, to discuss the matter with himself—­to face boldly, without scruple or weakness, this possible but monstrous thing—­came upon him anew, and so imperative that he rose without even drinking his glass of Groseillette, shook hands with the astounded druggist, and plunged out into the foggy streets again.

He asked himself:  “What made this Marechal leave all his fortune to Jean?”

It was not jealousy now which made him dwell on this question, not the rather mean but natural envy which he knew lurked within him, and with which he had been struggling these three days, but the dread of an overpowering horror; the dread that he himself should believe that Jean, his brother, was that man’s son.

No.  He did not believe it, he could not even ask himself the question which was a crime!  Meanwhile he must get rid of this faint suspicion, improbable as it was, utterly and forever.  He craved for light, for certainty—­he must win absolute security in his heart, for he loved no one in the world but his mother.  And as he wandered alone through the darkness he would rack his memory and his reason with a minute search that should bring out the blazing truth.  Then there would be an end to the matter; he would not think of it again—­never.  He would go and sleep.