peasant shrewdness, and got rid of him so much the more
easily because it was now vintage time at Marsac. Eve's letter
enclosed another from Lucien:--

"MY DEAR DAVID,--Everything is going well. I am armed _cap-a-pie_;
to-day I open the campaign, and in forty-eight hours I shall have
made great progress. How glad I shall be to embrace you when you
are free again and my debts are all paid! My mother and sister
persist in mistrusting me; their suspicion wounds me to the quick.
As if I did not know already that you are hiding with Basine, for
every time that Basine comes to the house I hear news of you and
receive answers to my letters; and besides, it is plain that my
sister could not find any one else to trust. It hurts me cruelly
to think that I shall be so near you to-day, and yet that you will
not be present at this banquet in my honor. I owe my little
triumph to the vainglory of Angouleme; in a few days it will be
quite forgotten, and you alone would have taken a real pleasure in
it. But, after all, in a little while you will pardon everything
to one who counts it more than all the triumphs in the world to be
your brother,
"LUCIEN."

Two forces tugged sharply at David's heart; he adored his wife; and if
he held Lucien in somewhat less esteem, his friendship was scarcely
diminished. In solitude our feelings have unrestricted play; and a man
preoccupied like David, with all-absorbing thoughts, will give way to
impulses for which ordinary life would have provided a sufficient
counterpoise. As he read Lucien's letter to the sound of military
music, and heard of this unlooked-for recognition, he was deeply
touched by that expression of regret. He had known how it would be. A
very slight expression of feeling appeals irresistibly to a sensitive
soul, for they are apt to credit others with like depths. How should
the drop fall unless the cup were full to the brim?

So at midnight, in spite of all Basine's entreaties, David must go to
see Lucien.

"Nobody will be out in the streets at this time of night," he said; "I
shall not be seen, and they cannot arrest me. Even if I should meet
people, I can make use of Kolb's way of going into hiding. And
besides, it is so intolerably long since I saw my wife and child."

The reasoning was plausible enough; Basine gave way, and David went.
Petit-Claud was just taking leave as he came u