t
by her manner, tones, and gestures. Oh! Lucien was pitied, that was
true; but as for all that he had been, the pride of the household, the
great man of the family, the hero of the fireside,--all this, like
their fair hopes of him, was gone, never to return. They were so
afraid of his heedlessness that he was not told where David was
hidden. Lucien wanted to see his brother; but this Eve, insensible to
the caresses which accompanied his curious questionings, was not the
Eve of L'Houmeau, for whom a glance from him had been an order that
must be obeyed. When Lucien spoke of making reparation, and talked as
though he could rescue David, Eve only answered:

"Do not interfere; we have enemies of the most treacherous and
dangerous kind."

Lucien tossed his head, as one who should say, "I have measured myself
against Parisians," and the look in his sister's eyes said
unmistakably, "Yes, but you were defeated."

"Nobody cares for me now," Lucien thought. "In the home circle, as in
the world without, success is a necessity."

The poet tried to explain their lack of confidence in him; he had not
been at home two days before a feeling of vexation rather than of
angry bitterness gained hold on him. He applied Parisian standards to
the quiet, temperate existence of the provinces, quite forgetting that
the narrow, patient life of the household was the result of his own
misdoings.

"They are _bourgeoises_, they cannot understand me," he said, setting
himself apart from his sister and mother and David, now that they
could no longer be deceived as to his real character and his future.

Many troubles and shocks of fortune had quickened the intuitive sense
in both the women. Eve and Mme. Chardon guessed the thoughts in
Lucien's inmost soul; they felt that he misjudged them; they saw him
mentally isolating himself.

"Paris has changed him very much," they said between themselves. They
were indeed reaping the harvest of egoism which they themselves had
fostered.

It was inevitable but that the leaven should work in all three; and
this most of all in Lucien, because he felt that he was so heavily to
blame. As for Eve, she was just the kind of sister to beg an erring
brother to "Forgive me for your trespasses;" but when the union of two
souls had been as perfect since life's very beginnings, as it had been
with Eve and Lucien, any blow dealt to that fair ideal is fatal.
Scoundrels can draw knives on each other and make it up agai