M. de Camors embraced the child with tenderness; and leaning toward him, spoke to him in a low voice, and asked after his mother and about his amusements, with a singularly soft and sad manner.  Then he let him go, and walked with a slow step, breathing the fresh morning air, examining the leaves and the flowers with extraordinary interest.  From time to time a deep, sad sigh broke from his oppressed chest; he passed his hand over his brow as if to efface the importunate images.  He sat down amid the quaintly clipped boxwood which ornamented the garden in the antique fashion, called his son again to him, held him between his knees, interrogating him again, in a low voice, as he had done before; then drew him toward him and clasped him tightly for a long time, as if to draw into his own heart the innocence and peace of the child’s.  Madame de Camors surprised him in this gush of feeling, and remained mute with astonishment.  He rose immediately and took her hand.

“How well you bring him up!” he said.  “I thank you for it.  He will be worthy of you and of your mother.”

She was so surprised at the soft, sad tone of his voice, that she replied, stammering with embarrassment, “And worthy of you also, I hope.”

“Of me?” said Camors, whose lips were slightly tremulous.  “Poor child, I hope not!” and rapidly withdrew.

Madame de Camors and Madame de Tecle had learned, the previous morning, of the death of the General.  The evening of the Count’s arrival they did not speak to him on the subject, and were cautious not to make any allusion to it.  The next day, and the succeeding ones, they practised the same reserve, though very far from suspecting the fatal circumstances which rendered this souvenir so painful to M. de Camors.  They thought it only natural he should be pained at so sudden a catastrophe, and that his conscience should be disturbed; but they were astonished when this impression prolonged itself from day to day, until it took the appearance of a lasting sentiment.

They began to believe that there had arisen between Madame de Campvallon and himself, probably occasioned by the General’s death, some quarrel which had weakened the tie between them.

A journey of twenty-four hours, which he made fifteen days after his arrival, was to them a confirmation of the truth they before suspected; but his prompt return, his new tastes, which kept him at Reuilly during the summer, seemed to them favorable symptoms.

He was singularly sad, pensive, and more inactive than usual in his habits.  He took long walks alone.  Sometimes he took his son with him, as if by chance.  He sometimes attempted a little timid tenderness with his wife; and this awkwardness, on his part, was quite touching.

“Marie,” he said to her one day, “you, who are a fairy, wave your wand over Reuilly and make of it an island in mid-ocean.”

“You say that because you know how to swim,” said she, laughing and shaking her head; but the heart of the young woman was joyful.