"You took that receipt from him!" exclaimed Julie indignantly. "He believes that I will accept it! You had not the courage to tear it up and throw the pieces in his face! Oh! I beg your pardon, Marcel, I forget that he is your kinsman, that for your own sake you must treat him gently. Very well, give me the receipt, and bring Monsieur Antoine to me. This must be settled to-day; I will undertake to settle it." "Take care, madame," said Marcel, in whose breast a faint hope revived, as he discovered the vulnerable point in Madame d'Estrelle, at which lightning-flashes of energy could still be produced. "Monsieur Antoine is very irritable too, his self-esteem is bent upon having you for his debtor. Do not so act with him that he will detest Julien." "Is not Julien's future assured?" "Yes, if all the conditions of the arrangement are observed; and I should lie if I told you that Monsieur Antoine is aware of your refusal to observe that one in which you are concerned." "Oh! _mon Dieu!_ what a position you have put me in, Marcel! With your blind devotion to practical affairs, with your obstinate determination to save me from poverty, you have degraded me! That man believes that I have sold my heart, that he has bought it with his money, and Julien also believes that I have betrayed love for wealth! Ah! you would have done better to kill me! To-day I feel that I cannot bear it all, and that I must die!" Julie sobbed as if her heart would break; it was a long time since she had wept. Marcel preferred to see her so, rather than changed into a statue; he hoped for some favorable result from a violent paroxysm. He tried deliberately to cause it. "Scold me, curse me," he said to her; "I did it all for Julien." "That is true of course," replied Julie; "I do wrong to blame you for it. Forgive me, my friend. Are you perfectly sure that if I offend Monsieur Antoine by my refusal, everything that he has done for Julien will be in danger of being undone?" "Indubitably, and Monsieur Antoine will be justified on equitable grounds. He is waiting, with an impatience which begins to alarm me, for you to proclaim his merits and cease to be ashamed of his benefactions. You must drink this cup, you must drink it for love of Julien, if, as I suppose, that love is not dead!" "Let us not talk about that; I will drink the cup to the dregs. But how shall we explain to the world the generosity which I am forced to accept? What reason can we give for it? The world will suppose that I have fawned upon that old man, that I have bewitched him by degrading coquetries; perhaps they will say something worse." "Yes, madame," said Marcel, determined to venture upon one supreme test to make sure of Julie's sentiments, "the evil-minded will say all that, and I do not as yet see any way to prevent their saying it. We will try to find a way; but if we cannot, will your devotion to Julien go so far as the sacrifice I ask?"