"Excellent, M. Doublet! A regular Baucis and Philemon idea. You have always a capital illustration to your ideas." "You are too good to me, my lord. Has your lordship any further orders for me?" "None. Stay, though; what cash have you in hand?" "Twenty-nine thousand three hundred and odd francs for current expenses, my lord marquis; but there is a heavy sum at the bank belonging to this quarter's income." "Well, bring me twenty thousand francs in gold, and, should I have gone out, give them to Joseph for me." "Does your lordship wish for them this morning?" "I do." "Within an hour the gold shall be here. You have nothing else to say to me, my lord?" "No, M. Doublet." "A hundred and twenty-six thousand francs per annum, wholly unincumbered," repeated the steward, as he was about to quit the room; "this is a glorious day for me to see; I almost feared at one time that we should not secure this desirable property. Your lordship's most humble servant, I take my leave." "Good morning, M. Doublet." As the door closed upon the steward, M. d'Harville, overcome with the mental agony he had repressed thus far, threw himself into an armchair, leaned his elbows on the desk before which he sat, and covering his face with his hands, for the first time since receiving the fatal _billet_, gave vent to a flood of hot, burning tears. "Cruel mockery of fate!" cried he, at length, "to have made me rich, but to have given me only shame and dishonour to place within the gilded frame: the perjury of Clémence, the disgrace which will descend upon my innocent child. Can I suffer this? Or shall I for the sake of her unoffending offspring spare the guilty mother from the opprobrium of an exposure?" Then rising suddenly from his seat, with sparkling eyes and clenched teeth he cried, in a deep, determined voice, "No, no! Blood, blood! The fearful protection from laughter and derision. Ah, full well I can now comprehend her coldness, her antipathy, wretched, wretched woman!" Then, stopping all at once, as though melted by some tender recollection, he resumed, in a hoarse tone, "Aversion! Alas! too well I know its cause. I inspire her with loathing, with disgust!" Then, after a lengthened silence, he cried, in a voice broken by sighs, "Yet, was it my fault or my misfortune? Should she have wronged me thus for a calamity beyond my power to avert? Surely I am a more fitting object for her pity than scorn and hatred." Again rekindling into his excited feelings, he reiterated, "Nothing but blood--the blood of both--can wash out this guilty stain! Doubtless he, the favoured lover, has been informed why she flies her husband's arms."