"'Why did you bring me here, Janille?' he says with a deep sigh. 'I knew they had destroyed my poor family nest; I had seen that from a distance, but I have never had the heart to come in and see all this ruin close. I hadn't any feeling of pride about the château, but I was fond of it because I passed my youthful years here; because I was happy here and my parents died here. If anyone had bought it to live in, if I could see it in good repair and well kept, I should be half-consoled, for we love things as we ought to love persons--a little more on their account than our own. But what pleasure can it give you to show me what speculators have done to the house of my ancestors?' "'Monsieur,' I answered, 'it was necessary for us to come and see what the damage is, so that we can tell how much we have to spend, and how we must go to work to repair it. Just imagine that your estate was ruined by a hurricane in one night; with such a character as I know yours to be, instead of crying over it, you would go right to work to rebuild it.' "'But there's no rhyme nor reason in your comparison,' says Monsieur Antoine. 'I haven't the means to repair the château, and even if I had I should be no better off, for even this carcass no longer belongs to me.' "'Wait a bit,' says I. 'How much did they ask you when you offered to buy back just the house and the little piece of land next to it, the orchard, the garden, the hill, and the little meadow on the bank of the river?' "'I didn't ask it seriously, Janille, but simply to see how low the value of a fine estate had fallen. They told me ten thousand francs for what was left, and I retired, knowing well enough that ten thousand francs and I would never pass through the same door.' "'Well, monsieur,' says I, 'it's no longer a matter of ten thousand francs, but only four thousand at this moment. They thought that you couldn't resist the temptation, and that you would spend what capital you had left in re-establishing yourself in the ruins of your domain. That's why they fixed the price at ten thousand francs on a place that isn't worth the half of it, and that no one but you would ever want; but since you gave up buying it back they have grown more modest. I have been bargaining secretly, without your knowledge and under an assumed name. Say the word, and to-morrow you shall be lord of Châteaubrun.' "'But what good would it do me, my dear Janille? What could I do with this pile of stone and these three or four fragments of wall with no doors or windows?'"