It was as if he wore the same garments and held the same ideas as his big nephews, as if there were nothing whatever to distinguish him from other men.

He was still more surprised, however, by Marie's silence on all religious questions.

She seemed to live on quietly and happily, without a thought of what might be beyond life, that terrifying realm of mystery, which to him had brought such agony of mind.
Now that he came every two or three days to Montmartre she noticed that he was suffering.

What could be the matter with him, she wondered.

When she questioned him in a friendly manner and only elicited evasive replies, she guessed that he was ashamed of his sufferings, and that they were aggravated, rendered well-nigh incurable, by the very secrecy in which he buried them.