"At what price have I obtained it? is it not, John? I can read your thoughts. I have no cause to blush for the means I have employed. The day of his attempted suicide, Oliver pledged me, as you know, that he would not make a second attempt within twenty-four hours. Before daybreak I rapped at his door. He had not retired. His face was as ominous as the evening before. 'Oliver,' I said to him, 'let us go at once.' 'Where are we going?' 'You shall know. You have promised me to renounce till night-fall your projects of suicide. It matters little to you where you pass your last day, here or elsewhere. Come.' Oliver followed me. We went to Sceaux, where I had once before spent some time, hoping to find relief in solitude from my griefs. Perhaps you have forgotten that when the chateau of Sceaux became national property, our good old patriot porter in St. Honore Street became, by your recommendation to Cambon, one of the guardians of the domain. The fine old man occupies with his wife the ground floor of a pavilion situated near one of the gates of the estate. The second floor is vacant, and it was there I dwelt during my former sojourn in the place. To this abode I conducted Oliver. I presented him to the keeper and his wife as one of our relatives who had been ordered to the country for his health; I was to stay to take care of him. The good people received us with joy. They fitted up, from the relics in the furniture repository of the old mansion, a room for Oliver, and took upon themselves the task of preparing our meals. I had in the neighborhood of six hundred livres, which I had saved. That sum would suffice for all our needs for quite a while. "My arrangements with the keeper concluded," continued Victoria, "I led Oliver out into the park. We had left Paris before dawn. By the time we arrived at Sceaux, nature had donned all the fragrant beauty of new-born day. The May morning sun cast his first radiant beams over those enchanted vistas. We walked in silence over the velvety lawns, whose richness was reflected in the little ponds that dotted them. Here were vases and statues of marble niched in the green of the hedges; yonder spouting fountains surrounded by immense rose-bushes then in full bloom. Their scent filled the air. These details may seem childish, brother, but they were all important." "I can well see it; you hoped to reattach the poor boy to life by displaying to him, in that fine spring morning, nature in her most smiling aspect."