CHAPTER VIII.
On the same day that the crime of La Jonchere was discovered, and precisely at the hour that M.Tabaret made his memorable examination in the victim's chamber, the Viscount Albert de Commarin entered his carriage, and proceeded to the Northern railway station, to meet his father.
The young man was very pale: his pinched features, his dull eyes, his blanched lips, in fact his whole appearance denoted either overwhelming fatigue or unusual sorrow.

All the servants had observed, that, during the past five days, their young master had not been in his ordinary condition: he spoke but little, ate almost nothing, and refused to see any visitors.

His valet noticed that this singular change dated from the visit, on Sunday morning, of a certain M.Noel Gerdy, who had been closeted with him for three hours in the library.
The Viscount, gay as a lark until the arrival of this person, had, from the moment of his departure, the appearance of a man at the point of death.

When setting forth to meet his father, the viscount appeared to suffer so acutely that M.Lubin, his valet, entreated him not to go out; suggesting that it would be more prudent to retire to his room, and call in the doctor.
But the Count de Commarin was exacting on the score of filial duty, and would overlook the worst of youthful indiscretions sooner than what he termed a want of reverence.

He had announced his intended arrival by telegraph, twenty-four hours in advance; therefore the house was expected to be in perfect readiness to receive him, and the absence of Albert at the railway station would have been resented as a flagrant omission of duty.
The viscount had been but five minutes in the waiting-room, when the bell announced the arrival of the train.