which strewed the table and took them out. He replaced
the plates, knives and forks and put the child into his high chair.
While Parent went to look for the lady's maid, to wait at table; who
came in great astonishment. As she had heard nothing in George's room,
where she had been working. She soon however, brought in the soup, a
burnt leg of mutton, and mashed potatoes.

Parent sat by the side of the child, very much upset and distressed at
all that had happened. He gave the boy his dinner, and endeavored to eat
something him self. But he could only swallow with an effort, as if his
throat had been paralyzed. By degrees, he was seized by an insane desire
of looking at Limousin who was sitting opposite to him and making bread
pellets, to see whether George was like him, but he did not venture to
raise his eyes for some time; at last, however, he made up his mind to
do so, and gave a quick, sharp look at the face which he knew so well,
although he almost fancied that he had never looked at it carefully, as
it looked so different to what he had fancied. From time to time he
looked at him, trying to recognize a likeness in the smallest lines of
his face, in the slightest features, and then he looked at his son,
under the pretext of feeding him.

Two words were sounding in his ears "His father! his father! his
father!" They buzzed in his temples at every beat of his heart. Yes,
that man, that tranquil man who was sitting on the other side of the
table was, perhaps, the father of his son, of George, of his little
George. Parent left off eating; he could not manage any more; a terrible
pain, one of those attacks of pain which make men scream, roll on the
ground and bite the furniture, was tearing at his entrails, and he felt
inclined to take a knife and plunge it into his stomach. It would ease
him and save him, and all would be over.

For could he live now? Could he get up in the morning, join in the
meals, go out into the streets, go to bed at night and sleep with that
idea dominating him: "Limousin is Little George's father!" No, he would
not have the strength to walk a step, to dress himself, to think of
anything, to speak to anybody! Every day, every hour, every moment, he
should be trying to know, to guess, to discover this terrible secret.
And the little boy, his dear little boy, he could not look at him any
more without enduring the terrible pains of that doubt, of being
tortured by it to the very marrow of his bone