scal, and a sudden inspiration made
him pause abruptly. He darted to his own room, and a minute later he
returned with a package of letters, which he laid on the table, saying:
"Here, mother, read and see for yourself."

Madame Ferailleur drew her spectacles from their case, and, after
adjusting them, she began to read.

With his elbows on the table, and his head resting upon his hands,
Pascal eagerly watched his mother, anxious to read her impressions
on her face. She was evidently astonished. She had not expected these
letters would express such nobility of sentiment, an energy no whit
inferior to her own, and even an echo of her own prejudices. For this
strange young girl shared Madame Ferailleur's rather bigoted opinions.
Again and again she asked herself if her birth and past had not created
an impassable abyss between Pascal and herself. And she had not felt
satisfied on this point until the day when the gray-haired magistrate,
after hearing her story, said: "If I had a son, I should be proud to
have him beloved by you!"

It soon became apparent that Madame Ferailleur was deeply moved, and
once she even raised her glasses to wipe away a furtive tear which made
Pascal's heart leap with very joy. "These letters are admirable," she
said at last; "and no young girl, reared by a virtuous mother, could
have given better expression to nobler sentiments; but----" She paused,
not wishing to wound her son's feelings, and as he insisted, she added:

"But, these letters have the irreparable fault of being addressed to
you, Pascal!"

This, however, was the expiring cry of her intractable obstinacy. "Now,"
she resumed, "wait before you censure your mother." So saying, she rose,
opened a drawer, and taking from it a torn and crumpled scrap of paper,
she handed it to her son, exclaiming: "Read this attentively."

This proved to be the note in pencil which Madame Leon had given to
Pascal, and which he had divined rather than read by the light of the
street-lamp; he had handed it to his mother on his return, and she had
kept it. He had scarcely been in his right mind the evening he received
it, but now he was enjoying the free exercise of all his faculties.
He no sooner glanced at the note than he sprang up, and in an excited
voice, exclaimed, "Marguerite never wrote this!"

The strange discovery seemed to stupefy him. "I was mad, raving mad!" he
muttered. "The fraud is palpable, unmistakable. How could I have failed
to dis