“Why not, seeing that he hates her? Why not? What is there in that man’s heart? He devotes all his existence to a work of love on our behalf; and, from one minute to the next, that love turns to execration.”
He pressed Don Luis’ arm and, in a hollow voice, asked:
“Do you believe that he is my father?”
“Siméon Diodokis is your father, captain,” replied Don Luis.
“Ah, don’t, don’t! It’s too horrible! God, but we are in the valley of the shadow!”
“On the contrary,” said Don Luis, “the shadow is lifting slightly; and I confess that our talk with M. Vacherot has given me a little light.”
“Do you mean it?”
But, in Patrice Belval’s fevered brain, one idea jostled another. He suddenly stopped:
“Siméon may have gone back to the porter’s lodge! . . . And we sha’n’t be there! . . . Perhaps he will bring Coralie back!”
“No,” Don Luis declared, “he would have done that before now, if it could be done. No, it’s for us to go to him.”