."

"Unhappy boy; what bliss and what misery!" And Mlle. Armande drew his
fevered face to her breast and kissed his forehead, cold and damp
though it was, as the holy women might have kissed the brow of the
dead Christ when they laid Him in His grave clothes. Following out the
excellent scheme suggested by the prodigal son, he was brought by
night to the quiet house in the Rue du Bercail; but chance ordered it
that by so doing he ran straight into the wolf's jaws, as the saying
goes. That evening Chesnel had been making arrangements to sell his
connection to M. Lepressoir's head-clerk. M. Lepressoir was the notary
employed by the Liberals, just as Chesnel's practice lay among the
aristocratic families. The young fellow's relatives were rich enough
to pay Chesnel the considerable sum of a hundred thousand francs in
cash.

Chesnel was rubbing his hands. "A hundred thousand francs will go a
long way in buying up debts," he thought. "The young man is paying a
high rate of interest on his loans. We will lock him up down here. I
will go yonder myself and bring those curs to terms."

Chesnel, honest Chesnel, upright, worthy Chesnel, called his darling
Comte Victurnien's creditors "curs."

Meanwhile his successor was making his way along the Rue du Bercail
just as Mlle. Armande's traveling carriage turned into it. Any young
man might be expected to feel some curiosity if he saw a traveling
carriage stop at a notary's door in such a town and at such an hour of
the night; the young man in question was sufficiently inquisitive to
stand in a doorway and watch. He saw Mlle. Armande alight.

"Mlle. Armande d'Esgrignon at this time of night!" said he to himself.
"What can be going forward at the d'Esgrignons'?"

At the sight of mademoiselle, Chesnel opened the door circumspectly
and set down the light which he was carrying; but when he looked out
and saw Victurnien, Mlle. Armande's first whispered word made the
whole thing plain to him. He looked up and down the street; it seemed
quite deserted; he beckoned, and the young Count sprang out of the
carriage and entered the courtyard. All was lost. Chesnel's successor
had discovered Victurnien's hiding place.

Victurnien was hurried into the house and installed in a room beyond
Chesnel's private office. No one could enter it except across the old
man's dead body.

"Ah! M. le Comte!" exclaimed Chesnel, notary no longer.

"Yes, monsieur," the Count answered, understanding his old