laden clouds, which veiled, without concealing, the light of the moon.

Slightly calmed by the brisk and cold air of the night, Ferrand, hoping to
combat his internal agitation by the rapidity of his walk, plunged into the
obscure walks of his garden, marching with rapid strides, and from time to
time striking his forehead with his clinched fists.

Walking thus at hazard, he reached the end of a walk near a greenhouse in
ruins. Suddenly he stumbled violently over a mound of earth newly raised.
He stooped, and looked mechanically on some linen stained with blood.

He was near the grave where Louise Morel buried her dead child. Her
child--also the child of Jacques Ferrand! Notwithstanding his obduracy,
notwithstanding the frightful fears which agitated him, Jacques Ferrand
shuddered with alarm.

There was something supernatural in this stumbling-block. Pursued by the
avenging punishment of his _vice_, chance carried him to the grave of
his child--unhappy fruit of his violence. Under any other circumstances,
Jacques Ferrand would have trampled on this sepulcher with atrocious
indifference; but having exhausted his savage energy in the scene we have
related, he was seized with a weakness and sudden alarm. His face was
covered with an icy sweat, his trembling knees shook under him, and he fell
lifeless across this open grave.




CHAPTER III.