“There, good-bye, but send Mme. Séchard to me; I must have a power of attorney from your wife. And bear in mind, my friend, that there is a fire burning in your affairs,” said Petit-Claud, by way of warning of all the troubles gathering in the law courts to burst upon David’s head. “Here am I with one foot in Burgundy and the other in Champagne,” he added to himself as he closed the office door on David. Harassed by money difficulties, beset with fears for his wife’s health, stung to the quick by Lucien’s disgrace, David had worked on at his problem. He had been trying to find a single process to replace the various operations of pounding and maceration to which all flax or cotton or rags, any vegetable fibre, in fact, must be subjected; and as he went to Petit-Claud’s office, he abstractedly chewed a bit of nettle stalk that had been steeping in water. On his way home, tolerably satisfied with his interview, he felt a little pellet sticking between his teeth. He laid it on his hand, flattened it out, and saw that the pulp was far superior to any previous result. The want of cohesion is the great drawback of all vegetable fibre; straw, for instance, yields a very brittle paper, which may almost be called metallic and resonant. These chances only befall bold inquirers into Nature’s methods! “Now,” said he to himself, “I must contrive to do by machinery and some chemical agency the thing that I myself have done unconsciously.” When his wife saw him, his face was radiant with belief in victory. There were traces of tears in Eve’s face. “Oh! my darling, do not trouble yourself; Petit-Claud will guarantee that we shall not be molested for several months to come. There will be a good deal of expense over it; but, as Petit-Claud said when he came to the door with me, ‘A Frenchman has a right to keep his creditors waiting, provided he repays them capital, interest, and costs.’--Very well, then, we shall do that----” “And live meanwhile?” asked poor Eve, who thought of everything. “Ah! that is true,” said David, carrying his hand to his ear after the unaccountable fashion of most perplexed mortals. “Mother will look after little Lucien, and I can go back to work again,” said she. “Eve! oh, my Eve!” cried David, holding his wife closely to him.--“At Saintes, not very far from here, in the sixteenth century, there lived one of the very greatest of Frenchmen, for he was not merely the inventor of glaze, he was the glorious precursor of Buffon and Cuvier besides; he was the first geologist, good, simple soul that he was. Bernard Palissy endured the martyrdom appointed for all seekers into secrets but his wife and children and all his neighbors were against him. His wife used to sell his tools; nobody understood him, he wandered about the countryside, he was hunted down, they jeered at him. But I--am loved----” “Dearly loved!” said Eve, with the quiet serenity of the love that is sure of itself.