“Let us say nothing more on the subject, father,” said Marianne. “I was wrong in introducing the subject. It can be nothing but a painful one for both yourself and myself. You had given me warning. But it was too late. The subject shall never be brought up again between us; that I promise you.” “You could not speak to me otherwise if it were my greatest enemy. Is it so?” He did not utter the name of Baradier, but Marianne read it upon his lips. She raised her eyes up to her father’s face, as though to ask pardon from him for what he must consider a kind of treason. She did not, however, find in his countenance that angry and threatening expression she dreaded to see there. He was passive and calm, and sat there for a moment without uttering a word. Then, in accents of great deliberation, he asked— “We are thinking of Marcel Baradier, are we not? Yes, it must be he. I was wrong to let you visit Geneviève de Trémont. That was very imprudent on my part. However, it cannot be helped now. We must try to arrange matters.” “Arrange matters!” stammered Marianne. “Yes, my dear child. We must make an attempt. I would do anything to make you happy.” “Forget your bitter feelings of the past?” “I will try to make the Baradiers forget theirs.” “Oh, father, dear father!” She flung her arms around his neck with such a burst of joy, that Lichtenbach turned pale with shame. For the first time in his life, he had a very clear impression of the significance of a cowardly action, doubtless, because his victim in this case was his own daughter. At the same time, he felt that the evil deeds of a whole lifetime accumulate, and that, at some time or other, the interest must be paid, in humiliation and suffering. He looked at Marianne tenderly, and said, in accents of sincerity— “Ah! is it so serious as that? Very well, my child, I will do everything possible to make you happy.” After kissing her, he returned to his room, ordered his carriage, and drove away to call on the Abbé d’Escayrac. CHAPTER IV ABOUT five o’clock Madame Baradier had just returned, and was reading in her small salon; her daughter, Amélie, and Geneviève de Trémont were working at the table, chatting pleasantly the while, when the servant entered, and said— “There is a priest here, who wishes to speak to you, madame.” Madame Baradier, lady patroness of several charitable institutions, was continually receiving appeals to her generosity. She made no distinction between the clergy and the laity, but received all with equal benevolence. Accordingly, she ordered the visitor to be showed in. The first glance she gave him showed her a fine, intelligent face, the general aspect being rather that of a fashionable and carefully dressed priest. The first words he uttered confirmed this judgment— “Madame,” said the visitor, “I am the Abbé d’Escayrac, secretary of the Issy establishment, which is under the lofty patronage of the Bishop of Andropolis.”