noticed that
evening that Mlle. Armande's features, usually so serene and pure,
showed signs of agitation.

"That poor heroic child!" said the old Marquise de Casteran, "she must
be suffering still. A woman never knows what her sacrifices to her
family may cost her."

Next day it was arranged with Chesnel that Mlle. Armande should go to
Paris to snatch her nephew from perdition. If any one could carry off
Victurnien, was it not the woman whose motherly heart yearned over him?
Mlle. Armande made up her mind that she would go to the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse and tell her all. Still, some sort of pretext was necessary
to explain the journey to the Marquis and the whole town. At some cost
to her maidenly delicacy, Mlle. Armande allowed it to be thought that
she was suffering from a complaint which called for a consultation
of skilled and celebrated physicians. Goodness knows whether the town
talked of this or no! But Mlle. Armande saw that something far more than
her own reputation was at stake. She set out. Chesnel brought her his
last bag of louis; she took it, without paying any attention to it, as
she took her white capuchine and thread mittens.

"Generous girl! What grace!" he said, as he put her into the carriage
with her maid, a woman who looked like a gray sister.

Du Croisier had thought out his revenge, as provincials think out
everything. For studying out a question in all its bearings, there are
no folk in this world like savages, peasants, and provincials; and
this is how, when they proceed from thought to action, you find every
contingency provided for from beginning to end. Diplomatists are
children compared with these classes of mammals; they have time before
them, an element which is lacking to those people who are obliged to
think about a great many things, to superintend the progress of all
kinds of schemes, to look forward for all sorts of contingencies in
the wider interests of human affairs. Had de Croisier sounded poor
Victurnien's nature so well, that he foresaw how easily the young Count
would lend himself to his schemes of revenge? Or was he merely profiting
by an opportunity for which he had been on the watch for years? One
circumstance there was, to be sure, in his manner of preparing his
stroke, which shows a certain skill. Who was it that gave du Croisier
warning of the moment? Was it the Kellers? Or could it have been
President du Ronceret's son, then finishing his law studies in Paris?