in order to draw my secret
from me, given me the courage to undertake what I should never have dared
to dream of? _Audaces fortuna juvat_. Oh, Providence! Providence! She is
mine, the girl with the dark eyes is mine!

He heard a slight noise in the corridor.

--Good never comes alone, he continued, it always has evil for an escort.
Behind the sweet form of the angel, the grinning face of Satan. He is
coming upstairs and knocks at the door.

He had not lighted his lamp again, and he carefully refrained from
answering. He heard Veronica, trying to open the door and calling him in a
low voice. But he pretended to be deaf, and quietly got into bed, all the
while cursing his accomplice, and thinking of the clumsy trap into which he
had fallen like a fool, and of that thick and filthy spider's web where,
like an unwary and silly fly, he had daubed his wings.

What a difference between the chaste resistance of Suzanne, her tears and
her defeat, and the hideous advances of that old courtesan of the sacristy!

In place of that unclean creature, accomplished in crime, oozing hypocrisy
from every pore, he had an adorable, loving, charming mistress, such as he
had never dared to dream of. And all this alteration in a few hours!
because he had faced it out, because, excited by intoxication, he had taken
his courage in both hands, and because he had dared.

Oh, why had he not dared ere this? He would not be under the infamous yoke
of his servant. And how many priests, he said to himself, for want of a
little boldness, are devoted to a degrading concubinage with faded old
spinsters!

He was not without uneasiness. How could he see Suzanne again, situated as
he was between the jealous watching of the servant and the vigilance of the
father? And above all, how could he discard his uncle's entreaties, and
refuse an unexpected promotion, without arousing suspicion in high
quarters? For, more than ever, he wished to remain at Althausen and keep
the treasure which had just caused him so much anxiety. Yes, he saw them
accumulating on his head, swooping from all parts and under all aspects:
Veronica, Durand, Ridoux, the Bishop, the gossips, scandal, dishonour.

But, after all, what did it matter to him? The essential is that he was in
possession of Suzanne, that Suzanne was his, that he had the most charming
of mistresses, and he was indifferent to all the rest.

To see her again readily and without danger, to contrive other interview