All that had become lost in the black night of his stupor and grief, grief so extreme that he had almost died of it--seized with shivering on his return from the cemetery, struck down by a fever which during three weeks had kept him delirious, hovering between life and death.

His brother had come and nursed him and had then attended to pecuniary matters, dividing the little inheritance, leaving him the house and a modest income and taking his own share in money.

And as soon as Guillaume had found him out of danger he had gone off again, once more vanishing into the unknown.

But then through what a long convalescence he, Pierre, had passed, buried as it were in that deserted house.

He had done nothing to detain Guillaume, for he realised that there was an abyss between them.