e it. As for remaining in Paris, I cannot do
so. Neither my nature nor my face are made to bear the affronts,
the neglect, the disdain shown to a ruined man, the son of a
bankrupt! Good God! think of owing two millions! I should be
killed in a duel the first week; therefore I shall not return
there. Your love--the most tender and devoted love which ever
ennobled the heart of man--cannot draw me back. Alas! my beloved,
I have no money with which to go to you, to give and receive a
last kiss from which I might derive some strength for my forlorn
enterprise.

"Poor Charles! I did well to read the letter. I have gold; I will give
it to him," thought Eugenie.

She wiped her eyes, and went on reading.

I have never thought of the miseries of poverty. If I have the
hundred louis required for the mere costs of the journey, I have
not a sou for an outfit. But no, I have not the hundred louis, not
even one louis. I don't know that anything will be left after I
have paid my debts in Paris. If I have nothing, I shall go quietly
to Nantes and ship as a common sailor; and I will begin in the new
world like other men who have started young without a sou and
brought back the wealth of the Indies. During this long day I have
faced my future coolly. It seems more horrible for me than for
another, because I have been so petted by a mother who adored me,
so indulged by the kindest of fathers, so blessed by meeting, on
my entrance into life, with the love of an Anna! The flowers of
life are all I have ever known. Such happiness could not last.
Nevertheless, my dear Annette, I feel more courage than a careless
young man is supposed to feel,--above all a young man used to the
caressing ways of the dearest woman in all Paris, cradled in
family joys, on whom all things smiled in his home, whose wishes
were a law to his father--oh, my father! Annette, he is dead!

Well, I have thought over my position, and yours as well. I have
grown old in twenty-four hours. Dear Anna, if in order to keep me
with you in Paris you were to sacrifice your luxury, your dress,
your opera-box, we should even then not have enough for the
expenses of my extravagant ways of living. Besides, I would never
accept such sacrifices. No, we must part now and forever--

"He gives her up! Blessed Virgin! What happiness!"

Eugenie quivered with joy. Charles made a movement, and a chill of
terror ran throug