Louis drove back to the office to inquire of the fellow clerk who had brought the news, but, finding no one there, he ran out and was about to enter the cab again when the driver said:
"I have just learned that the accident was on the left line, monsieur."
Louis accordingly ordered him to drive to that station. Here the sad news was confirmed. He also learned at what point on the line the accident had occurred. The main road and then a cross road enabled him to reach Bas Mendon about nightfall, and, guided by the blaze of the burning cars, he soon found the scene of the catastrophe.
The press of the time gave such graphic accounts of this frightful calamity that is not necessary to enter into further particulars; we will merely say that all night Louis searched in vain for his father among the charred, disfigured, and terribly mutilated bodies. About four o'clock in the morning the young man, overcome with grief and fatigue, returned to Paris, with a faint hope that his father might have been one of the few who had escaped injury, and that he might have returned home during the night.
The carriage had scarcely reached the house before Louis sprang out and ran to the porter's lodge.
"Has my father returned?" he exclaimed.
"No, M. Louis."
"Ah! there can be no further doubt, then," murmured Louis. "Dead! dead!"
His knees gave way under him, and he was obliged to sit down. After resting a few moments in the room of the porter, who offered him the usual condolences, Louis went slowly up to his room.
On seeing the bare, poorly furnished room so long shared with a father who had loved him so devotedly, and who had just met with such a frightful death, Louis's grief became uncontrollable, and he threw himself down on the bed, and, burying his face in his hands, wept long and bitterly.