other perfectly on that score. As for you, sailor, carry your
deep-sea line about you."

"Poor Birotteau?" said the baroness.

"Oh, get rid of him at once," replied the old man, as he rose to take
leave. "If some clever Radical lays hold of that empty head of his, he
may cause you much trouble. After all, the court would certainly give
a verdict in his favour, and Troubert must fear that. He may forgive
you for beginning the struggle, but if they were defeated he would be
implacable. I have said my say."

He snapped his snuff-box, put on his overshoes, and departed.

The next day after breakfast the baroness took the vicar aside and
said to him, not without visible embarrassment:--

"My dear Monsieur Birotteau, you will think what I am about to ask of
you very unjust and very inconsistent; but it is necessary, both for
you and for us, that your lawsuit with Mademoiselle Gamard be
withdrawn by resigning your claims, and also that you should leave my
house."

As he heard these words the poor abbe turned pale.

"I am," she continued, "the innocent cause of your misfortunes, and,
moreover, if it had not been for my nephew you would never have begun
this lawsuit, which has now turned to your injury and to ours. But
listen to me."

She told him succinctly the immense ramifications of the affair, and
explained the serious nature of its consequences. Her own meditations
during the night had told her something of the probable antecedents of
Troubert's life; she was able, without misleading Birotteau, to show
him the net so ably woven round him by revenge, and to make him see
the power and great capacity of his enemy, whose hatred to Chapeloud,
under whom he had been forced to crouch for a dozen years, now found
vent in seizing Chapeloud's property and in persecuting Chapeloud in
the person of his friend. The harmless Birotteau clasped his hands as
if to pray, and wept with distress at the sight of human horrors that
his own pure soul was incapable of suspecting. As frightened as though
he had suddenly found himself at the edge of a precipice, he listened,
with fixed, moist eyes in which there was no expression, to the
revelations of his friend, who ended by saying: "I know the wrong I do
in abandoning your cause; but, my dear abbe, family duties must be
considered before those of friendship. Yield, as I do, to this storm,
and I will prove to you my gratitude. I am not talking of your worldly
interests, for those I tak