Poor Eve in her despair burst into tears. “Ah, sir! why did you not come yesterday evening to tell me this? We should have been spared disgrace and--and something far worse----” “I was talking with the Cointets until midnight. They are behind Métivier, as you must have suspected. But how has something worse than our poor David’s arrest happened since yesterday evening?” “Here is the awful news that I found when I awoke this morning,” she said, holding out Lucien’s letter. “You have just given me proof of your interest in us; you are David’s friend and Lucien’s; I need not ask you to keep the secret----” “You need not feel the least anxiety,” said Petit-Claud, as he returned the letter. “Lucien will not take his life. Your husband’s arrest was his doing; he was obliged to find some excuse for leaving you, and this exit of his looks to me like a piece of stage business.” The Cointets had gained their ends. They had tormented the inventor and his family, until, worn out by the torture, the victims longed for a respite, and then seized their opportunity and made the offer. Not every inventor has the tenacity of the bull-dog that will perish with his teeth fast set in his capture; the Cointets had shrewdly estimated David’s character. The tall Cointet looked upon David’s imprisonment as the first scene of the first act of the drama. The second act opened with the proposal which Petit-Claud had just made. As arch-schemer, the attorney looked upon Lucien’s frantic folly as a bit of unhoped-for luck, a chance that would finally decide the issues of the day. Eve was completely prostrated by this event; Petit-Claud saw this, and meant to profit by her despair to win her confidence, for he saw at last how much she influenced her husband. So far from discouraging Eve, he tried to reassure her, and very cleverly diverted her thoughts to the prison. She should persuade David to take the Cointets into partnership. “David told me, madame, that he only wished for a fortune for your sake and your brother’s; but it should be clear to you by now that to try to make a rich man of Lucien would be madness. The youngster would run through three fortunes.” Eve’s attitude told plainly enough that she had no more illusions left with regard to her brother. The lawyer waited a little so that her silence should have the weight of consent. “Things being so, it is now a question of you and your child,” he said. “It rests with you to decide whether an income of two thousand francs will be enough for your welfare, to say nothing of old Séchard’s property. Your father-in-law’s income has amounted to seven or eight thousand francs for a long time past, to say nothing of capital lying out at interest. So, after all, you have a good prospect before you. Why torment yourself?” Petit-Claud left Eve Séchard to reflect upon this prospect. The whole scheme had been drawn up with no little skill by the tall Cointet the evening before.