She led, indeed, the life of a recluse, never speaking unless her work absolutely required it.

And thus she now contented herself with saying: "Monsieur l'Abbe, Monsieur Bertheroy is in the study, and has been waiting there for a quarter of an hour." At this Guillaume intervened, as if the news revived him: "Does Bertheroy still come here, then?
I'll see him willingly.

His is one of the best, the broadest, minds of these days.

He has still remained my master." A former friend of their father,--the illustrious chemist, Michel Froment,--Bertheroy had now, in his turn, become one of the loftiest glories of France, one to whom chemistry owed much of the extraordinary progress that has made it the mother-science, by which the very face of the earth is being changed.

A member of the Institute, laden with offices and honours, he had retained much affection for Pierre, and occasionally visited him in this wise before dinner, by way of relaxation, he would say.
"You showed him into the study?
All right, then, we will go there," said the Abbe to the servant.