tune 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," cried Agathe, "he is no longer a
child."

Terrible revelation of the inward thought of the poor woman on the
conduct of her son.

"Mother, I assure you he thought only of your sufferings and of the
wrong he had done you," said Joseph.

"Oh, my God! let him come back to me, let him live, and I will forgive
all," cried the poor mother, to whose mind a horrible vision of Philippe
dragged dead out of the river presented itself.

Gloomy silence reigned for a short time. The day went by with cruel
alternations of hope and fear; all three ran to the window at the least
sound, and gave way to every sort of conjecture. While the family were
thus gri