Meeting with a public conveyance, the doctor got into it with Billet and Pitou, and they went to Louis-the-Great College, where Sebastian was still in the sick ward.
The principal received the doctor with deep regard as he knew him to be the foremost pupil of the physicians and chemists, Cabanis and Condorcet.
He imparted his fears, as well to the doctor as to the parent of his pupil, that the boy was too much given to moody fits.
"You are right," said Gilbert, "gravity in a boy is a token of lunacy or weakness."
While Pitou was being refreshed in the principal's residence and Billet shared a bottle with the gentleman himself, the physician conferred with his son.
"I ask you about your health," said the father to the pallid, nervous youth, "and you answer that you are well. Now I ask you if your reserve towards your schoolfellows arises from pride and I hope you will answer, no."
"Be encouraged, father," said Sebastian, "It is neither pride nor ill health, but sorrow. I have a dream which frightens me and yet it is not a terror. When a little boy, I had such visions."
"Ah?"
"Two or three times I was lost in the woods, following this phantom."
Gilbert looked at the speaker in alarm.