'

"The Count trembled violently at the words, and tears came into his eyes
as he grasped my hand, saying, 'I did not know my man thoroughly.
You have made me both glad and sorry. We will make provision for the
children in the counter-deed.'

"I went with him to the door; it seemed to me that there was a glow of
satisfaction in his face at the thought of this act of justice.

"Now, Camille, this is how a young wife takes the first step to the
brink of a precipice. A quadrille, a ballad, a picnic party is
sometimes cause sufficient of frightful evils. You are hurried on by
the presumptuous voice of vanity and pride, on the faith of a smile,
or through giddiness and folly! Shame and misery and remorse are three
Furies awaiting every woman the moment she oversteps the limits----"

"Poor Camille can hardly keep awake," the Vicomtesse hastily broke
in.--"Go to bed, child; you have no need of appalling pictures to keep
you pure in heart and conduct."

Camille de Grandlieu took the hint and went.

"You were going rather too far, dear M. Derville," said the Vicomtesse,
"an attorney is not a mother of daughters nor yet a preacher."

"But any newspaper is a thousand times----"

"Poor Derville!" exclaimed the Vicomtesse, "what has come over you?
Do you really imagine that I allow a daughter of mine to read the
newspapers?--Go on," she added after a pause.

"Three months after everything was signed and sealed between the Count
and Gobseck----"

"You can call him the Comte de Restaud, now that Camille is not here,"
said the Vicomtesse.

"So be it! Well, time went by, and I saw nothing of the counter-deed,
which by rights should have been in my hands. An attorney in Paris lives
in such a whirl of business that with certain exceptions which we make
for ourselves, we have not the time to give each individual client the
amount of interest which he himself takes in his affairs. Still, one day
when Gobseck came to dine with me, I asked him as we left the table if
he knew how it was that I had heard no more of M. de Restaud.

"'There are excellent reasons for that,' he said; 'the noble Count is at
death's door. He is one of the soft stamp that cannot learn how to put
an end to chagrin, and allow it to wear them out instead. Life is a
craft, a profession; every man must take the trouble to learn
that business. When he has learned what life is by dint of painful
experiences, the fibre of him is toughened, and acquires a certain