t he had drawn down her wrath upon himself.

"Ah!" he sighed, as he sat down, "you children have broken my heart
between you. This is killing me. My head feels as if it were on fire.
Be good to each other and love each other! This will be the death of
me! Delphine! Nasie! come, be sensible; you are both in the wrong. Come,
Dedel," he added, looking through his tears at the Baroness, "she must
have twelve thousand francs, you see; let us see if we can find them for
her. Oh, my girls, do not look at each other like that!" and he sank on
his knees beside Delphine. "Ask her to forgive you--just to please
me," he said in her ear. "She is more miserable than you are. Come now,
Dedel."

"Poor Nasie!" said Delphine, alarmed at the wild extravagant grief in
her father's face, "I was in the wrong, kiss me----"

"Ah! that is like balm to my heart," cried Father Goriot. "But how are
we to find twelve thousand francs? I might offer myself as a substitute
in the army----"

"Oh! father dear!" they both cried, flinging their arms about him. "No,
no!"

"God reward you for the thought. We are not worth it, are we, Nasie?"
asked Delphine.

"And besides, father dear, it would only be a drop in the bucket,"
observed the Countess.

"But is flesh and blood worth nothing?" cried the old man in his
despair. "I would give body and soul to save you, Nasie. I would do a
murder for the man who would rescue you. I would do, as Vautrin did, go
to the hulks, go----" he stopped as if struck by a thunderbolt, and put
both hands to his head. "Nothing left!" he cried, tearing his hair. "If
I only knew of a way to steal money, but it is so hard to do it, and
then you can't set to work by yourself, and it takes time to rob a bank.
Yes, it is time I was dead; there is nothing left me to do but to die. I
am no good in the world; I am no longer a father! No. She has come to me
in her extremity, and, wretch that I am, I have nothing to give her. Ah!
you put your money into a life annuity, old scoundrel; and had you not
daughters? You did not love them. Die, die in a ditch, like the dog that
you are! Yes, I am worse than a dog; a beast would not have done as I
have done! Oh! my head... it throbs as if it would burst."

"Papa!" cried both the young women at once, "do, pray, be reasonable!"
and they clung to him to prevent him from dashing his head against the
wall. There was a sound of sobbing.

Eugene, greatly alarmed, took the bill that bore Vautrin'