That is the sort of man that the former tutor was: a scoundrel who lacked only a tempting opportunity. The bait of eighty thousand francs was the opportunity. He had written the anonymous letter himself, on his typewriter. He had placed it in an envelope with the other, the incriminating one, and despatched them both to the marquis. But although a greedy longing for gain, added to base and pitiless envy of the _grand seigneur_, had impelled him to do this disgraceful deed in an hour of madness, when the blow was dealt, his conscience of the earlier days, of the humble giver of lessons to worthy bourgeois, had begun to make itself heard. He could not banish from his thoughts the haunting image of M. de Claviers' face as he had seen it during the fortnight between his crime and his dismissal, so haggard, so ravaged by suffering! His handiwork terrified him, especially as the end sought--at such a price!--was not attained. Contrary to his expectation, the marquis went on paying his debts. Pictures, furniture, hangings, remained at Grandchamp. The eighty thousand francs Altona had promised him would never come to his hands. There are not many criminals who, in the face of a useless crime, practise the calm philosophy of the assassin in the old story, who found only a single sou in his victim's pocket, and observed: "A hundred like this will make five francs!" The absolute inutility of his murderous villainy did not even afford Chaffin the semi-insensibility which might have come from the possession of that little fortune which, added to the store already accumulated, would have given him a round twenty thousand francs a year. Tormented by this fixed idea, he was beginning to exhibit symptoms of the acute mental alienation which incessant, poignant regret for an irreparable sin is likely to cause in a man of some education. He could no longer eat or sleep, read or write, attend to any business or remain quiet. This agitation had not escaped the son's notice. The doctor had begun, almost automatically, to watch his father. He soon assured himself that these symptoms, so readily interpreted by an alienist, were caused by no physical disturbance. The cause was entirely mental--the physician said, cerebral. Almost automatically again, he had sought that cause.