Monsieur Lecoq, Volume II by Emile Gaboriau

When Maurice narrated to his father the various incidents which had marked his interview with Marie-Anne in the pine grove near La Reche, M. d'Escorval was prudent enough to make no allusion to the hopes of final victory which he, himself, still entertained. "My poor Maurice," he thought, "is heart-broken, but resigned. It is better for him to remain without hope than to be exposed to the danger of another possible disappointment."

But passion is not always blind, and Maurice divined what the baron tried to conceal -- and clung to this faint hope in his father's intervention, as tenaciously as a drowning man clings to the proverbial straw. If he refrained from speaking on the subject, it was only because he felt convinced that his parents would not tell him the truth. Still he watched all that went on in the house with that subtlety of penetration which fever so often imparts, and nothing that his father said or did escaped his vigilant eyes and ears. He heard the baron put on his boots, ask for his hat, and select a cane from among those placed in the hall stand; and a moment later he, moreover, heard the garden-gate grate upon its hinges. Plainly enough M. d'Escorval was going out. Weak as he was, Maurice succeeded in dragging himself to the window in time to ascertain the truth of his surmise.