Is it not needless for us to say that this woman and girl who lived so solitary, were victims of the cupidity of the notary? We will conduct the reader into the miserable room they occupied. CHAPTER XXVI. THE VICTIMS OF AN ABUSE OF TRUST. Let the reader imagine a closet situated on the fourth story of the house. A pale, gloomy light hardly penetrated this narrow apartment, through a little window of cracked, dirty glass, with a single shutter; a yellowish, dilapidated paper covered the walls; from the broken ceiling hung long spider-webs. The floor, broken in several places, showed the beams and laths of the room below. A deal table, a chair, an old trunk without a lock, and a flock bed with coarse sheets and an old woolen covering--such was the furniture. On the chair was seated the Baroness de Fermont. In the bed reposed Claire de Fermont (such were the names of the two victims of Jacques Ferrand). Possessing but one narrow bed, the mother and daughter slept by turns, dividing thus the hours of the night. The mother had too much anguish, too many inquietudes, to get much repose; but the daughter found some moments of rest and forgetfulness. She was now asleep. Nothing could be more touching, more sorrowful, than the sight of this misery, imposed by the cupidity of the notary on two women, until then accustomed to the sweet enjoyments of a life of ease, and surrounded in their native town with that consideration which an honorable and honored family always inspire. The Baroness de Fermont was about thirty-six years of age; her countenance at once expresses mildness and excellence; her features, formerly of remarkable beauty, are now sadly changed; her black hair, divided on her forehead and confined behind her head, already shows some tresses of silver. Clothed in a dress of mourning, tattered in several places, the Baroness de Fermont, with her hand supporting her head, leaned against the wretched bed of her child, and regarded her with inexpressible anguish.