ten by both, and never repaid. Then this man must
always have been fond of him, always have taken an interest in him,
since he thought of his needs. Well then--well then--why leave his whole
fortune to Jean? No, he had never shown more marked affection for the
younger than for the elder, had never been more interested in one than
in the other, or seemed to care more tenderly for this one or that one.
Well then--well then--he must have had some strong secret reason for
leaving everything to Jean--everything--and nothing to Pierre.

The more he thought, the more he recalled the past few years, the more
extraordinary, the more incredible was it that he should have made such
a difference between them. And an agonizing pang of unspeakable anguish
piercing his bosom made his heart beat like a fluttering rag. Its
springs seemed broken, and the blood rushed through in a flood,
unchecked, tossing it with wild surges.

Then in an undertone, as a man speaks in a nightmare, he muttered: "I
must know. My God! I must know."

He looked further back now, to an earlier time, when his parents
had lived in Paris. But the faces escaped him, and this confused his
recollections. He struggled above all to see Marechal, with light, or
brown, or black hair. But he could not; the later image, his face as an
old man, blotted out all others. However, he remembered that he had been
slighter, and had a soft hand, and that he often brought flowers. Very
often--for his father would constantly say: "What, another bouquet! But
this is madness, my dear fellow; you will ruin yourself in roses." And
Marechal would say: "No matter; I like it."

And suddenly his mother's voice and accent, his mother's as she smiled
and said: "Thank you, my kind friend," flashed on his brain, so clearly
that he could have believed he heard her. She must have spoken those
words very often that they should remain thus graven on her son's
memory.

So Marechal brought flowers; he, the gentleman, the rich man, the
customer, to the humble shop-keeper, the jeweller's wife. Had he loved
her? Why should he have made friends with these tradespeople if he had
not been in love with the wife? He was a man of education and fairly
refined tastes. How many a time had he discussed poets and poetry with
Pierre. He did not appreciate these writers from an artistic point of
view, but with sympathetic and responsive feeling. The doctor had often
smiled at his emotions which had struck him as