He felt, as soon as he entered the room, that he was in the presence of something evil; he was startled and pained, as he would have been by a threatening cry in the stillness of the night.

He walked straight to Madame de Cintre and seized her by the hand.
"What is the matter ?" he asked, commandingly; "what is happening ?" Urbain de Bellegarde stared, then left his place and came and leaned upon his mother's chair, behind.

Newman's sudden irruption had evidently discomposed both mother and son.

Madame de Cintre stood silent, with her eyes resting upon Newman's.

She had often looked at him with all her soul, as it seemed to him; but in this present gaze there was a sort of bottomless depth.