? And again, it may be, like many a woman who has
experienced the storm of lawless love, she felt a longing to lead a
virtuous life again. Perhaps she only learned the worth of that life
when she came to reap the woeful harvest sown by her errors.

"Every time that little Ernest came out of his father's room, she put
him through a searching examination as to all that his father had done
or said. The boy willingly complied with his mother's wishes, and told
her even more than she asked in her anxious affection, as he thought.

"My visit was a ray of light for the Countess. She was determined to
see in me the instrument of the Count's vengeance, and resolved that
I should not be allowed to go near the dying man. I augured ill of all
this, and earnestly wished for an interview, for I was not easy in my
mind about the fate of the counter-deed. If it should fall into the
Countess' hands, she might turn it to her own account, and that would
be the beginning of a series of interminable lawsuits between her and
Gobseck. I knew the usurer well enough to feel convinced that he would
never give up the property to her; there was room for plenty of legal
quibbling over a series of transfers, and I alone knew all the ins and
outs of the matter. I was minded to prevent such a tissue of misfortune,
so I went to the Countess a second time.

"I have noticed, madame," said Derville, turning to the Vicomtesse, and
speaking in a confidential tone, "certain moral phenomena to which we
do not pay enough attention. I am naturally an observer of human nature,
and instinctively I bring a spirit of analysis to the business that I
transact in the interest of others, when human passions are called into
lively play. Now, I have often noticed, and always with new wonder, that
two antagonists almost always divine each other's inmost thoughts and
ideas. Two enemies sometimes possess a power of clear insight into
mental processes, and read each other's minds as two lovers read in
either soul. So when we came together, the Countess and I, I understood
at once the reason of her antipathy for me, disguised though it was by
the most gracious forms of politeness and civility. I had been forced to
be her confidant, and a woman cannot but hate the man before whom she
is compelled to blush. And she on her side knew that if I was the man in
whom her husband placed confidence, that husband had not as yet given up
his fortune.

"I will spare you the conversatio