"Speak!" she cried; "explain yourself. Am I not your mother? You must tell me the truth; I must hear all." He appeared to hesitate, as if he feared to give so terrible a shock to his mother. Finally, in a hollow voice he said, "I am ruined!" "Ruined!" "Yes, and I have nothing more to wait for nor to hope for. I am dishonored, and through my own fault, my own grievous fault!" "Raoul!" "It is true. But fear not, mother; I will not drag the name that you bestowed upon me in the dirt. I have the vulgar courage not to survive my dishonor. Go, waste no sympathy on me. I am one of those creatures of destiny who have no refuge save death. I am the victim of fate. Have you not been forced to deny my birth? Did not the memory of me haunt you and deprive your nights of sleep? And now, having found you, in exchange for your devotion I bring into your life a bitter curse." "Ungrateful child! Have I ever reproached you?" "Never. And therefore with your blessing, and with your loved name on his lips, your Raoul will--die!" "Die? You?" "Yes, mother: honor bids it. I am condemned by inexorable judges--my will and my conscience." An hour earlier Madame Fauvel would have sworn that Raoul had made her suffer all that a woman could endure; and now he had brought her a new grief so acute that the former ones seemed naught in comparison. "What have you done?" she stammered. "Money was intrusted to me. I played, and lost it." "Was it a large amount?" "No, but neither you nor I can replace it. Poor mother, have I not taken everything from you? Haven't you given me your last jewel?" "But M. De Clameran is rich; he has put his fortune at my disposal. I will order the carriage and go to him." "M. De Clameran, mother, is absent for eight days; and I must have the money to-night, or I am lost. Go! I have thought of everything before deciding. But one loves life at twenty!" He drew a pistol half out of his pocket, saying with a grim smile, "This will arrange everything." Madame Fauvel was too unnerved in reflecting upon the horror of the conduct of the supposed Raoul de Clameran to fancy that this last wild menace was but a means for obtaining money. Forgetting the past, ignoring the future, and concentrating her thought on the present situation, she saw but one thing--that her son was about to kill himself, and that she was powerless to arrest his suicide. "Wait, wait," she said; "Andre will soon return, and I will tell him that I have need of--How much did you lose?" "Thirty thousand francs." "You shall have them to-morrow." "I must have them to-night." She seemed to be going mad; she wrung her hands in despair. "To-night!" she said: "why didn't you come sooner? Do you lack confidence in me? To-night there is no one to open the safe--without that--" The expectant Raoul caught the word. He gave an exclamation of joy, as if a light had broken upon his dark despair. "The safe!" he cried; "do you know where the key is?" "Yes, it is here."