Didier, in fact, went to the balustrade. Here he came across an officer who had sat next to him at dinner, and asked him about Count de Gorbio. Who was the man who was so far advanced in Mile, de la Boulays' friendship?
"He is a Count created by the Pope, and during the last three or four years has launched into every sphere of society. He invested considerable monies in munition factories; and I hear that he and M. de la Boulays possess joint interests in various undertakings."
Didier made his way down to the park, walking about in the dimly-lit solitude like a soul distraught. He pressed his burning forehead to the iron rails of the garden gate, and stared vaguely at the white line of the road without seeing anything. He did not observe near him, on the other side of the gate, a man who was spying on him. He did not see, or rather he paid no heed, to a peddler's cart which went past. Nor did he perceive the nod which the peddler exchanged with the man behind the wall. Didier was conscious only of what was passing within himself; he thought only of his own condition which seemed to him as miserable as could be, and yet there was a time, not so very long ago, when he regarded himself as the most wretched of men.
But that was because he had learned to know hell and had not attained the paradise lost of Françoise's love. The story of creation portrays the awful spectacle of Adam and Eve driven from Eden by the angel with the flaming sword. Didier looked upon their woes as less than his own. They had been driven from the garden of Eden. Didier had driven himself out. He had drawn the sword upon himself.
At one time—and the time was not very far distant—the man called the Nut was the friend of a tremendous person from whom at times the cry Fatalitas burst forth like the fatal words which appeared in letters of fire on the wall at Belshazzer's feast.
Didier quivered with emotion at his remembrance of the Nut and with faltering steps turned to go back to the house, through the darkness of the park pierced by the uncertain light of the moon.
Before him stood a figure which barred his way. It was the figure of love. It was Françoise.
"What is this my father tells me?" she asked at once. "You are off to Paris to-night? Do you wish to leave us, Monsieur d'Haumont?"
Didier repeated what he had already said to M. de la Boulays, whereupon she reminded him of the unwisdom of going away in his precarious state of health.
"I am quite well now, thanks to you, and I shall never forget it."