gny, obstinately; "she may be no
longer formidable in that respect. But the wound in her heart will not
prevent her from inheriting."

"Who tells you so?" asked Rodin, coldly, and with assurance. "Do you
know why I have taken such pains, first to bring her in contact with
Djalma, and then to separate her from him?"

"That is what I ask you," said Father D'Aigrigny; "how can this storm of
passion prevent Mdlle. de Cardoville and the prince from inheriting?"

"Is it from the serene, or from the stormy sky, that darts the
destroying thunderbolt?" said Rodin, disdainfully. "Be satisfied; I
shall know where to place the conductor. As for M. Hardy, the man lived
for three things: his workmen, his friend, his mistress. He has been
thrice wounded in the heart. I always take aim at the heart; it is legal
and sure."

"It is legal, and sure, and praiseworthy," said the bishop; "for, if
I understand you rightly, this manufacturer had a concubine; now it is
well to make use of an evil passion for the punishment of the wicked."

"True, quite true," added the cardinal; "if they have evil passion for
us to make use of it, it is their own fault."

"Our holy Mother Perpetue," said the princess, "took every means to
discover this abominable adultery."

"Well, then, M. Hardy is wounded in his dearest affections, I admit,"
said Father d'Aigrigny, still disputing every inch of ground; "ruined
too in his fortune, which will only make him the more eager after this
inheritance."

The argument appeared of weight to the two prelates and the princess;
all looked at Rodin with anxious curiosity. Instead of answering he
walked up to the sideboard, and, contrary to his habits of stoical
sobriety, and in spite of his repugnance for wine, he examined the
decanters, and said: "What is there in them?"

"Claret and sherry," said the hostess, much astonished at the sudden
taste of Rodin, "and--"

The latter took a decanter at hazard, and poured out a glass of Madeira,
which he drank off at a draught. Just be fore he had felt a strange kind
of shivering; to this had succeeded a sort of weakness. He hoped the
wine would revive him.

After wiping his mouth with the back of his dirty hand, he returned to
the table, and said to Father d'Aigrigny: "What did you tell me about M.
Hardy?"

"That being ruined in fortune, he would be the more eager to obtain this
immense inheritance," answered Father d'Aigrigny, inwardly much offended
at the imperious