"It would be to soil my hands."

He turned towards Rodin, who had approached hastily, as if to interpose.
"It is not worth while chastising a wretch," said M. Hardy; "But I will
press your honest hand, sir--for you have had the courage to unmask a
traitor and a coward."

"Sir!" cried M. de Blessac, overcome with shame; "I am at your
orders--and--"

He could not finish. The sound of voices was heard behind the door,
which opened violently, and an aged woman entered, in spite of the
efforts of the servant, exclaiming in an agitated voice: "I tell you, I
must speak instantly to your master."

On hearing this voice, and at sight of the pale, weeping woman, M.
Hardy, forgetting M. de Blessac, Rodin, the infamous treachery, and all,
fell back a step, and exclaimed: "Madame Duparc! you here! What is the
matter?"

"Oh, sir! a great misfortune--"

"Margaret!" cried M. Hardy, in a tone of despair.

"She is gone, sir!"

"Gone!" repeated M. Hardy, as horror-struck as if a thunderbolt had
fallen at his feet. "Margaret gone!"

"All is discovered. Her mother took her away--three days ago!" said the
unhappy woman, in a failing voice.

"Gone! Margaret! It is not true. You deceive me," cried M. Hardy.
Refusing to hear more, wild, despairing, he rushed out of the house,
threw himself into his carriage, to which the post-horses were still
harnessed, waiting for M. de Blessac, and said to the postilion: "To
Paris! as fast as you can go!"

As the carriage, rapid as lightning, started upon the road to Paris, the
wind brought nearer the distant sound of the war-song of the Wolves,
who were rushing towards the factory. In this impending destruction, see
Rodin's subtle hand, administering his fatal blows to clear his way up
to the chair of St. Peter to which he aspired. His tireless, wily course
can hardly be darker shadowed by aught save that dread coming horror
the Cholera, whose aid he evoked, and whose health the Bacchanal Queen
wildly drank.

That once gay girl, and her poor famished sister; the fair patrician and
her Oriental lover; Agricola, the workman, and his veteran father; the
smiling Rose-Pompon, and the prematurely withered Jacques Rennepont;
Father d'Aigrigny, the mock priest; and Gabriel, the true disciple;
with the rest that have been named and others yet to be pictured, in the
blaze of the bolts of their life's paths, will be seen in the third and
concluding part of this romance entitled,

"THE WANDERING JEW: