ced
gayety.

"Look here, Philippe, what is the matter? If it is anything serious, I
am a man and not a ninny. I am accustomed to hard struggles, and if
discretion is needed, I have it."

"Are you sure?"

"On my honor."

"You will tell no one, no matter who?"

"No one."

"Well, I am going to blow my brains out."

"You!--are you going to fight a duel?"

"I am going to kill myself."

"Why?"

"I have taken eleven hundred francs from the funds in my hands; I have
got to send in my accounts to-morrow morning. Half my security is
lost; our poor mother will be reduced to six hundred francs a year.
That would be nothing! I could make a fortune for her later; but I am
dishonored! I cannot live under dishonor--"

"You will not be dishonored if it is paid back. To be sure, you will
lose your place, and you will only have the five hundred francs a year
from your cross; but you can live on five hundred francs."

"Farewell!" said Philippe, running rapidly downstairs, and not waiting
to hear another word.

Joseph left his studio and went down to breakfast with his mother; but
Philippe's confession had taken away his appetite. He took Madame
Descoings aside and told her the terrible news. The old woman made a
frightened exclamation, let fall the saucepan of milk she had in her
hand, and flung herself into a chair. Agathe rushed in; from one
exclamation to another the mother gathered the fatal truth.

"He! to fail in honor! the son of Bridau to take the money that was
trusted to him!"

The widow trembled in every limb; her eyes dilated and then grew
fixed; she sat down and burst into tears.

"Where is he?" she cried amid the sobs. "Perhaps he has flung himself
into the Seine."

"You must not give up all hope," said Madame Descoings, "because a
poor lad has met with a bad woman who has led him to do wrong. Dear
me! we see that every day. Philippe has had such misfortunes! he has
had so little chance to be happy and loved that we ought not to be
surprised at his passion for that creature. All passions lead to
excess. My own life is not without reproach of that kind, and yet I
call myself an honest woman. A single fault is not vice; and after
all, it is only those who do nothing that are never deceived."

Agathe's despair overcame her so much that Joseph and the Descoings
were obliged to lessen Philippe's wrong-doings by assuring her that
such things happened in all families.

"But he is twenty-eight years old,"