always supposed they were by another father, on account of the difference
in the name. I had frequently heard that the family had a strange
history, but did not know the details. As I took a great liking to Rene
we soon became intimate friends, and one evening, when I had been dining
with him alone, I asked him, by chance: "Are you a son of the first or
second marriage?" He grew rather pale, and then flushed, and did not
speak for a few moments; he was visibly embarrassed. Then he smiled in
the melancholy, gentle manner, which was peculiar to him, and said:

"My dear friend, if it will not weary you, I can give you some very
strange particulars about my life. I know that you are a sensible man, so
I do not fear that our friendship will suffer by my I revelations; and
should it suffer, I should not care about having you for my friend any
longer.

"My mother, Madame de Courcils, was a poor little, timid woman, whom her
husband had married for the sake of her fortune, and her whole life was
one of martyrdom. Of a loving, timid, sensitive disposition, she was
constantly being ill-treated by the man who ought to have been my father,
one of those boors called country gentlemen. A month after their marriage
he was living a licentious life and carrying on liaisons with the wives
and daughters of his tenants. This did not prevent him from having three
children by his wife, that is, if you count me in. My mother said
nothing, and lived in that noisy house like a little mouse. Set aside,
unnoticed, nervous, she looked at people with her bright, uneasy,
restless eyes, the eyes of some terrified creature which can never shake
off its fear. And yet she was pretty, very pretty and fair, a pale
blonde, as if her hair had lost its color through her constant fear.

"Among the friends of Monsieur de Courcils who constantly came to her