the very heart, "and we will give it back to you--"

"Nonsense!" he cried, interrupting her.

He took his old hat, rubbed white at the edges, stuck it over one ear,
and went downstairs, whistling.

"Philippe! where are you going without any money?" cried his mother, who
could not repress her tears. "Here, take this--"

She held out to him a hundred francs in gold, wrapped up in paper.
Philippe came up the stairs he had just descended, and took the money.

"Well; won't you kiss me?" she said, bursting into tears.

He pressed his mother in his arms, but without the warmth of feeling
which was all that could give value to the embrace.

"Where shall you go?" asked Agathe.

"To Florentine, Girodeau's mistress. Ah! they are real friends!" he
answered brutally.

He went away. Agathe turned back with trembling limbs, and failing
eyes, and aching heart. She fell upon her knees, prayed God to take
her unnatural child into His own keeping, and abdicated her woeful
motherhood.

CHAPTER VI

By February, 1822, Madame Bridau had settled into the attic room
recently occupied by Philippe, which was over the kitchen of her former
_appartement_. The painter's studio and bedroom was opposite, on the
other side of the staircase. When Joseph saw his mother thus reduced,
he was determined to make her as comfortable as possible. After his
brother's departure he assisted in the re-arrangement of the garret
room, to which he gave an artist's touch. He added a rug; the bed,
simple in character but exquisite in taste, had something monastic about
it; the walls, hung with a cheap glazed cotton selected with taste, of
a color which harmonized with the furniture and was newly covered, gave
the room an air of elegance and nicety. In the hallway he added a double
door, with a "portiere" to the inner one. The window was shaded by a
blind which gave soft tones to the light. If the poor mother's life was
reduced to the plainest circumstances that the life of any woman could
have in Paris, Agathe was at least better off than all others in a like
case, thanks to her son.

To save his mother from the cruel cares of such reduced housekeeping,
Joseph took her every day to dine at a table-d'hote in the rue de
Beaune, frequented by well-bred women, deputies, and titled people,
where each person's dinner cost ninety francs a month. Having nothing
but the breakfast to provide, Agathe took up for her son the old habits
she had formerly had with