"Poor man, poor man!" murmured Madame Du Tertre with downcast eyes; "lost so suddenly, as your Shakespeare says--'sent to his account with all his imperfections on his head.' It is terrible to think of; is it not Monsieur Martin?" "To be cut off with our sins yet inexpiated," said Martin Gurwood, not meeting the searching glance riveted upon him, "is, as you say, Madame Du Tertre, a terrible thing. Let us trust this unfortunate man was not wholly unprepared." "If he were a friend of Mr. Calverley's," hissed the lady at the end of the table, "and he must have been to have been placed in a position of trust, it is, I should say, most improbable that he was fitted for the sudden change." That morning Madame Du Tertre, although her breakfast had been of the scantiest, did not find it necessary to repair to Verrey's. When the party broke up she retired to her room, took the precaution of locking the door, and having something to think out, at once adopted her old resource of walking up and down. She said to herself: "The news has arrived, and just at the time that I expected it. He has been bold, and everything has turned out exactly as he could have wished. People will speak kindly of him and mourn over his fate, while he is far away and living happily, and laughing in his sleeve at the fools whose compassion he evokes. What would I give to be there with him on the same terms as those of the old days! I hate this dull British life, this ghastly house, these people, precise, exact, and terrible. I loathe the state of formality in which I live, the restraint and reticence I am obliged to observe! What is it to me to ride in a carriage by the side of that puppet downstairs, to sit in the huge dull rooms, to be waited upon by the silent solemn servants?" And her eyes blazed with fire as she sang in a soft low voice: "Les gueux, les gueux Sont les gens heureux; Ils s'aiment entre eux. Vivent les gueux!"