'Listen,' said he, 'I know this rascal through and through. It is better that I should go to pay him in person, to see if I can't get your notes back at half price.' Marcelle's eyes now sparkled with gratitude. 'Oh, Monsieur Saccard, how kind you are!' she exclaimed. And, addressing her husband, she added: 'You see, you big silly, that Monsieur Saccard has not eaten us!' Yielding to an irresistible impulse, he threw his arms round her neck and kissed her, as though to thank her for being more energetic and skilful than himself in these material difficulties which paralysed his energy. 'No, no!' said Saccard, when the young man finally pressed his hand, 'the pleasure is mine; it is very pleasant to see you love one another so much. Go home, and be easy.' In a couple of minutes his brougham, which was waiting for him, conveyed him to the Rue Feydeau, through muddy Paris, amid the jostling of umbrellas and splashing of puddles. But once upstairs he rang in vain at the dirty old door, on which was a plate bearing the inscription '_Disputed Claims_' in big letters. It did not open, there was no sound within, and he was on the point of going away, when, in his keen vexation, he shook it violently with his fist. Then a halting step was heard, and at last Sigismond appeared. 'What! it is you! I thought that it was my brother, who had come up again and forgotten his key. I never answer the door myself. Oh, he won't be long, and you can wait for him if you wish to see him.' With the same painful, unsteady step he returned, followed by Saccard, into the room which he occupied overlooking the Place de la Bourse. It was still quite light at that height above the mist, whence the rain was pouring into the streets. The room was frigidly bare with its little iron bedstead, its table and two chairs, and its few shelves of books. A small stove stood in front of the chimney-piece, and the fire, carelessly looked after, forgotten, had just gone out. 'Sit down, monsieur,' said Sigismond, 'my brother told me that he was only going out for a moment.' Saccard declined the proffered chair, however, and stood looking at him, struck by the progress which consumption had made in this tall, pale fellow with child-like eyes--eyes with a dim, dreamy expression, passing strange under a forehead which seemed typical of energy and obstinacy. His long wavy hair fell on either side of his face, which had become extremely sunken and emaciated, elongated too and drawn, as it were, towards the grave. 'You have been ill?' remarked Saccard, at a loss what else to say. Sigismond made a gesture of complete indifference. 'Oh, as usual,' he replied. 'This last week hasn't been a good one on account of the wretched weather. But I get on very well all the same. I no longer sleep, you know, so I can work, and if I have a little fever, why, it keeps me warm. Ah, there is so much to be done!'