sily, because his ill-luck at cards had deeply depressed him. Seeing
her atrocious Benjamin so pale and woe-begone, the poor mother knelt
beside him, kissed his hands, pressed them to her heart, and gazed at
him for a long time with eyes swimming in tears.

"Philippe," she said, in a choking voice, "promise not to kill yourself,
and all shall be forgotten."

Philippe looked at his sorrowing brother and at Madame Descoings,
whose eyes were full of tears, and thought to himself, "They are good
creatures." Then he took his mother in his arms, raised her and put her
on his knee, pressed her to his heart and whispered as he kissed her,
"For the second time, you give me life."

The Descoings managed to serve an excellent dinner, and to add two
bottles of old wine with a little "liqueur des iles," a treasure left
over from her former business.

"Agathe," she said at dessert, "we must let him smoke his cigars," and
she offered some to Philippe.

These two poor creatures fancied that if they let the fellow take his
ease, he would like his home and stay in it; both, therefore, tried to
endure his tobacco-smoke, though each loathed it. That sacrifice was not
so much as noticed by Philippe.

On the morrow, Agathe looked ten years older. Her terrors calmed,
reflection came back to her, and the poor woman had not closed an eye
throughout that horrible night. She was now reduced to six hundred
francs a year. Madame Descoings, like all fat women fond of good eating,
was growing heavy; her step on the staircase sounded like the chopping
of logs; she might die at any moment; with her life, four thousand
francs would disappear. What folly to rely on that resource! What should
she do? What would become of them? With her mind made up to become a
sick-nurse rather than be supported by her children, Agathe did not
think of herself. But Philippe? what would he do if reduced to live on
the five hundred francs of an officer of the Legion of honor? During the
past eleven years, Madame Descoings, by giving up three thousand
francs a year, had paid her debt twice over, but she still continued to
sacrifice her grandson's interests to those of the Bridau family.
Though all Agathe's honorable and upright feelings were shocked by this
terrible disaster, she said to herself: "Poor boy! is it his fault? He
is faithful to his oath. I have done wrong not to marry him. If I had
found him a wife, he would not have got entangled with this danseuse. He