There was a tap at the door, then the rustle of a dress; next, a young voice exclaimed:
"Here I am, mamma!"
Lormerin remained scared, as if at the sight of an apparition.
He stammered:
"Good-day, Mademoiselle."
Then, turning towards the mother:
"Oh! it is you!..."
In fact, it was she, she whom he had known in bygone days, the Lise who had vanished and come back! In her he found the woman he had won twenty-five years before. This one was even younger still, fresher, more childlike.
He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her to his heart again, murmuring in her ear:
"Good-day, Lison!"