heir
mark on his face. Then he went on tramp once more. He was hopeless,
and his heart was full of infinite sorrow, for he felt, amid all those
shadows, that he was evermore betrayed and alone.

Day broke at last. It was the murky dawn that follows winter nights and
looks so melancholy from muddy Paris pavements. Muffat had returned into
the wide streets, which were then in course of construction on either
side of the new opera house. Soaked by the rain and cut up by cart
wheels, the chalky soil had become a lake of liquid mire. But he never
looked to see where he was stepping and walked on and on, slipping and
regaining his footing as he went. The awakening of Paris, with its gangs
of sweepers and early workmen trooping to their destinations, added to
his troubles as day brightened. People stared at him in surprise as he
went by with scared look and soaked hat and muddy clothes. For a long
while he sought refuge against palings and among scaffoldings, his
desolate brain haunted by the single remaining thought that he was very
miserable.

Then he thought of God. The sudden idea of divine help, of superhuman
consolation, surprised him, as though it were something unforeseen and
extraordinary. The image of M. Venot was evoked thereby, and he saw his
little plump face and ruined teeth. Assuredly M. Venot, whom for months
he had been avoiding and thereby rendering miserable, would be delighted
were he to go and knock at his door and fall weeping into his arms. In
the old days God had been always so merciful toward him. At the least
sorrow, the slightest obstacle on the path of life, he had been wont to
enter a church, where, kneeling down, he would humble his littleness in
the presence of Omnipotence. And he had been used to go forth thence,
fortified by prayer, fully prepared to give up the good things of this
world, possessed by the single yearning for eternal salvation. But at
present he only practiced by fits and starts, when the terror of hell
came upon him. All kinds of weak inclinations had overcome him, and
the thought of Nana disturbed his devotions. And now the thought of God
astonished him. Why had he not thought of God before, in the hour of
that terrible agony when his feeble humanity was breaking up in ruin?

Meanwhile with slow and painful steps he sought for a church. But he had
lost his bearings; the early hour had changed the face of the
streets. Soon, however, as he turned the corner of the Rue de la
C