"At last! at last!"
"You are mad," he said in a whisper. "I assure you that you are mad. Think of the risk you are running. If that man ..."
She started.
"Oh! Henri, do not say that man, when you are speaking of him."
"Very well," he said abruptly, "if our son guesses anything, if he has any suspicions, he will have you, he will have us both in his power. You have got on without seeing him for the last forty years; what is the matter with you to-day?"
They had been going up the long street that leads from the sea to the town, and now they turned to the right, to go to Etretat. The white road extended in front of them, under a blaze of brilliant sunshine, so they went on slowly in the burning heat. She had taken her old friend's arm, and was looking straight in front of her, with a fixed and haunted gaze, and at last she said:
"And so you have not seen him again, either?"
"No, never."
"Is it possible?"
"My dear friend, do not let us begin that discussion again. I have a wife and children and you have a husband, so we both of us have much to fear from other people's opinion."