Heurteux, _homme d'affaires_, coming from the bright sunlight into the semi-darkness of the salon, blinked uncertainly, tried to distinguish his surroundings. She, on the contrary, distinguished very clearly a stiff, wooden figure, grizzly whiskers, a protruding under-jaw, one of those brigands of the Law whom we meet in the outskirts of the Palais de Justice, and who seem to have been born fifty years old, with a bitter expression about the mouth, an envious manner, and morocco satchels under their arms. He sat down on the edge of the chair to which she waved him, turned his head to make sure that the servant had left the room, then opened his satchel with great deliberation, as if to look for a paper. Finding that he did not speak, she began in an impatient tone: "I must inform you, Monsieur, that my husband is away and that I am not familiar with any of his business matters." Unmoved, with his hand still fumbling among his documents, the man replied: "I am quite well aware that Monsieur Jenkins is away, Madame--" he laid particular stress on the words "Monsieur Jenkins,"--"especially as I come from him." She stared at him in terror. "From him?" "Alas! yes, Madame. The doctor--as you are doubtless aware--is in a very embarrassed position for the moment. Unfortunate operations on the Bourse, the downfall of a great financial institution in which he had funds invested, the heavy burden of the Work of Bethlehem now resting on him alone, all these disasters combined have compelled him to form an heroic resolution. He is selling his house, his horses, everything that he owns, and has given me a power of attorney to that end." He had found at last what he was looking for, one of those stamped papers, riddled with memoranda and words erased and interlined, into which the unfeeling law sometimes crowds so much cowardice and falsehood. Madame Jenkins was on the point of saying: "But I was here. I would have done whatever he wished, carried out all his orders," when she suddenly realized, from the visitor's lack of constraint, his self-assured, almost insolent manner, that she too was involved in that general overturn, in that throwing overboard of the expensive house and useless chattels, and that her departure would be the signal for the sale. She rose abruptly. The man, still seated, continued: "What I still have to say, Madame,"--Oh! she knew, she could have dictated what he still had to say--"is so painful, so delicate--Monsieur Jenkins is leaving Paris for a long time, and, fearing to expose you to the perils and hazards of the new life upon which he is entering, to take you away from a son of whom you are very fond, and in whose interest it will be better perhaps--"