"My father!" Marius exclaimed.

"Ah, you love me, then!" the old man said.

There was an ineffable moment; they were choking and could not speak. At length the old man stammered,—

"Come! the stopper is taken out of him; he called me father."

Marius disengaged his head from his grandfather's arms, and said gently,—

"Now that I am better, father, I fancy I could see her."

"Foreseen, too; you will see her to-morrow."

"Father?"

"Well, what?"

"Why not to-day?"