CHAPTER XII

About a fortnight after this scene, Hubert had again begun to dine from home and to go out nearly every evening, to the great stupefaction of his mother, who, after being silent in the presence of a grief that she was powerless to control, now perceived in her son an air of intoxicated feverishness which frightened her. She could not forbear opening up her astonishment to George Liauran when the latter had come one evening, as was his wont, to take his place in that little drawing-room which had been the witness of so many of the poor woman's agonies.

The wind was blowing outside as on the night when General Scilly had commenced to think of his friends' unhappiness; and the old soldier, who was also present in his customary easy-chair, could not help observing the ravages which some ten months past had wrought upon the two widows.

"I do not understand it at all," replied George to the questioning of his cousin; "Hubert and I have had no interview. It is certain that his despair is inexplicable if he did not believe in Madame de Sauve's guilt, and it is certain that he is again on the best of terms with her."

"Knowing what he does," said the Count, "he is not proud."

"What would you?" returned George, "he is like the rest."

Madame Liauran, lying on her couch, was holding Madame Castel's hand while her cousin uttered these words, the scope of which he did not realise. The fingers of mother and grandmother exchanged a pressure by which the two women told each other of the suffering of which neither could ever be cured. They had not brought up their child that he might become like the rest. They caught a glimpse of the inevitable metamorphosis which was on the eve of its accomplishment in Hubert just now.

Alas! it is a profound truth that "man is like his love;" but this love, why and whence does it come to us? A question without reply, and, like woman's treachery, like man's weakness, like life itself, A CRUEL, CRUEL ENIGMA!

THE END.