"It was you who saved her; it was due to you that she did not throw herself into the canal, where she would have died; for so late at night no one would have seen her, no one would have taken her out of the water! Ah! I love you almost as much as I do her; I pray for only one thing, and that is, that I may be able to prove my gratitude some day!" "Well, well! what a silly fellow! here's a lot of talk for the simplest kind of an action: a man sees a girl trying to kill herself, and prevents her--I should like to know if that thing isn't done every day; any boy in the street would do as much." "So it was really she who came here! My heart guessed it, but that cruel man deceived me; he told me that it wasn't she, because he had made her cry and had turned her out of the house with harsh words! Oh! that was shameful, and I will not stay any longer in a house where Violette received such an affront. Wait here for me, Chicotin." "What are you going to do?" "Pack up my things, and I'll go away with you; my mother will come after us." "Bah! more nonsense! what does this mean? You mean to leave a man who has never been anything but kind to you, in such a way as this, without even saying good-bye to him? A man who, when your mother was sick and you hadn't a sou, gave you all that you needed to take care of her; a man who has taken you into his family, with your mother, and quartered you in this little chateau, where you are living like pigs in clover--you yourself said so? Well! that would be pretty! and you talk of gratitude, and this is the way you propose to treat your protector!" "What difference does it make what he has done for me? He made Violette so unhappy by turning her out of this house that she wanted to die, and that she would have died without you!" "As if he could have guessed that! You must see that this gentleman must know Violette's parents, and that they have played some vile trick on him, and that there's some deviltry in all this that we don't know about." "I don't care; I propose to go to Paris and ask her to forgive me for suspecting her." "So far as that goes, you will do well; but that ain't any reason for leaving your protector, for behaving mean to him, and I don't propose----" "Hush! here he is!'" Monsieur de Brevanne had returned from Paris. He saw the two young men. He observed Georget's excitement and agitation, and, divining a part of the truth, he went at once to his protege, and asked him, pointing to Chicotin: "Who is this young man?" "He is a friend of mine, monsieur, an old comrade; he is Chicotin, whom I've mentioned to you once or twice." "Ah! yes, I remember. What does he want?" "He came, monsieur, to tell me that Violette tried to throw herself into the water, when she left this house after you had driven her away; for it was she, monsieur, it was really she who came here, and you told me that it wasn't.--Poor Violette! but for him she would not be alive, and I--my mother would not have any son!"