rday, to see
Destouches once again, and entreat him to accept the assignats in
part-payment at least. He was not at home. Marguerite, the old
servant, said he was gone to the cathedral, not long since reopened.
Well, I found the usurer just coming out of the great western
entrance, heathen as he is, looking as pious as a pilgrim. I accosted
him, told my errand, begged, prayed, stormed! It was all to no
purpose, except to attract the notice and comments of the passers-by.
Destouches went his way, and I, with fury in my heart, betook myself
to a wine-shop--Le Brun's. He would not even change an assignat to
take for what I drank, which was not a little; and I therefore owe him
for it. When the gendarmes cleared the house at last, I was nearly
crazed with rage and drink. I must have been so, or I should never
have gone to the Rue Bechard, forced myself once more into the
notary's presence, and--and'----

'And what?' quivered the young man, as his father abruptly stopped,
startled as before into silence by a sudden rattling of the crazy
door. 'And what?'

'And abused him for a flinty-hearted scoundrel, as he is. He ordered
me away, and threatened to call the guard. I was flinging out of the
house, when Marguerite twitched me by the sleeve, and I stepped aside
into the kitchen. "You must not think," she said, "of going home on
such a night as this." It was snowing furiously, and blowing a
hurricane at the time. "There is a straw pallet," Marguerite added,
"where you can sleep, and nobody the wiser." I yielded. The good woman
warmed some soup, and the storm not abating, I lay down to rest--to
rest, do I say?' shouted Delessert, jumping madly to his feet, and
pacing furiously to and fro--'the rest of devils! My blood was in a
flame; and rage, hate, despair, blew the consuming fire by turns. I
thought how I had been plundered by the mercenary ruffian sleeping
securely, as he thought, within a dozen yards of the man he had
ruined--sleeping securely just beyond the room containing the
_secretaire_ in which the mortgage-deed of which I had been swindled
was deposited'----

'Oh, father!' gasped the son.

'Be silent, boy, and you shall know all! It may be that I dreamed all
this, for I think the creaking of a door, and a stealthy step on the
stair, awoke me; but perhaps that, too, was part of the dream.
However, I was at last wide awake, and I got up and looked out on the
cold night. The storm had passed, and the moon had tempo