Forty years prior to the period of this narrative, Mademoiselle de Meuil, having eloped with André Thierry, had gone with her fiancé to seek shelter with Antoine Thierry, who was already rich and still quite young. Until that time the two brothers had lived on good terms with each other. While she remained in hiding at the hôtel de Melcy, Mademoiselle de Meuil had manifested sincere friendship for the armorer and perfect confidence in him. André, being prosecuted by the Meuil family and in danger of being consigned to the Bastille, had been compelled to leave Paris, to avert suspicion from the right quarter, while certain influential friends of his endeavored to adjust his affairs and gradually succeeded in so doing. During this separation of several months, Mademoiselle de Meuil, constantly beset by the most painful anxiety, was more than once tempted to return to her parents in order to relieve the man she loved from the dangers and misfortunes which threatened him. More than once she discussed the subject frankly with André's brother, setting forth her fears and asking his advice. Then it was that Antoine conceived a strange idea, not treacherous and in no wise induced by passion, but in which his sensitive self-esteem was soon deeply involved. We will allow him to speak for a moment. "The girl was ruined, although she had not lived with my brother as his wife. She was too far compromised to be taken back into the family, and the very best that she could hope for was to end her days in a convent. My brother seemed to me even more completely ruined than she was. A _lettre de cachet_ had been issued against him, and that was no joke in those days. He might be shut up for twenty years, or for his whole life--who could say? And as the young lady told me all this herself, crying out every minute: 'What shall I do, Monsieur Antoine? _Mon Dieu!_ what shall I do?' the idea came into my head of saving them both by marrying the girl. I was not in love with her, no! the devil take me if I lie! I should have loved any other woman as much, and I had never given a thought to marriage. If she had not been of noble birth, which gave her--not in my eyes, for I have no prejudices--in many people's eyes a sort of distinction, I shouldn't have paid much attention to her. Are you laughing? What are you laughing at, you ass of an attorney?" "I am not laughing," said Marcel. "Go on. You were telling me about the bright idea that came into your head."