In answer to his ring Madame Cormier opened the door, and he saluted her without being recognized; but as the hall was dark this was not of great significance.  His hat in his hand, he followed her into the dining-room without speaking, in order that his voice should not betray him.

Then, after she had looked at him a moment, with uneasy surprise at first, she began to smile.

“It is Doctor Saniel!” she cried.  “Mon Dieu!  How stupid of me not to recognize you; it changes you so much to be shaved!  Pardon me.”

“It is because I am shaved that I come to ask a favor.”

“Of us, my dear sir?  Ah!  Speak quickly; we should be so happy to prove our gratitude.”

“I would ask Mademoiselle Phillis to give me, if she has it, a photograph that I gave her about a year ago.”

As Phillis wished the liberty to expose this photograph frankly, in order to have it always before her, she had asked for it, and Saniel had given it to her, in her mother’s presence.

“If she has it!” exclaimed Mme. Cormier.  “Ah! my dear sir, you do not know the place that all your goodness, and the services that you have rendered us, have made for you in our hearts.”

And passing into the next room, she brought a small velvet frame in which was the photograph.  Saniel took it out, on explaining the study for which he wanted it, and after promising to bring it back soon, he returned to his rooms.

Decidedly, everything was going well.  The plate was destroyed, Phillis’s proof in his hands; he had nothing more to fear from this side.  As to the experiment made on the mother, it was decisive enough to inspire him with confidence.  If Madame Cormier, who had seen him so often and for so long a time, and who thought of him at every instant, did not recognize him, how was it possible that Madame Dammauville, who had only seen him from a distance and for a few seconds, could recognize him after several months?

Would he never accustom himself to the idea that his life could not have the tranquil monotony of a bourgeois existence, that it would experience shocks and storms, but that if he knew how to remain always master of his force and will, it would bring him to a safe port?

The calm that was his before this vexation came back to him, and when the last proofs of his concours, confirming the success of the first, had given him the two titles that he so ardently desired and pursued at the price of so many pains, so many efforts and privations, he could enjoy his triumph in all security.

He held the present in his strong hands, and the future was his.

Now he could walk straight, boldly, his head high, jostling those who annoyed him, according to his natural temperament.