body knows Aquilina.
Shall I take her or leave her?"

[1] Protested.

"You will not take her!" cried a voice that filled Castanier with
sickening dread. He turned sharply, and saw the Englishman.

"The devil is in it!" cried the cashier aloud.

Melmoth had passed his victim by this time; and if Castanier's first
impulse had been to fasten a quarrel on a man who read his own
thoughts, he was so much torn by opposing feelings that the immediate
result was a temporary paralysis. When he resumed his walk he fell once
more into that fever of irresolution which besets those who are so
carried away by passion that they are ready to commit a crime, but have
not sufficient strength of character to keep it to themselves without
suffering terribly in the process. So, although Castanier had made up
his mind to reap the fruits of a crime which was already half executed,
he hesitated to carry out his designs. For him, as for many men of
mixed character in whom weakness and strength are equally blended, the
least trifling consideration determines whether they shall continue to
lead blameless lives or become actively criminal. In the vast masses of
men enrolled in Napoleon's armies there were many who, like Castanier,
possessed the purely physical courage demanded on the battlefield, yet
lacked the moral courage which makes a man as great in crime as he
could have been in virtue.

The letter of credit was drafted in such terms that immediately on his
arrival he might draw twenty-five thousand pounds on the firm of
Watschildine, the London correspondents of the house of Nucingen. The
London house had been already advised of the draft about to be made
upon them; he had written to them himself. He had instructed an agent
(chosen at random) to take his passage in a vessel which was to leave
Portsmouth with a wealthy English family on board, who were going to
Italy, and the passage money had been paid in the name of the Conte
Ferraro. The smallest details of the scheme had been thought out. He
had arranged matters so as to divert the search that would be made for
him into Belgium and Switzerland, while he himself was at sea in the
English vessel. Then, by the time that Nucingen might flatter himself
that he was on the track of his late cashier, the said cashier, as the
Conte Ferraro, hoped to be safe in Naples. He had determined to
disfigure his face in order to disguise himself the more completely,
and by means of an acid to imitat