character until a few minutes ago. To you I can make the admission:
there is nothing to be done."

"But what if there is?"

"I would give half the blood in my veins that it were so," said she,
finishing her sentence by a wistful shake of the head.

As the First Consul, beaten on the field of Marengo till five o'clock
in the evening, by six o'clock saw the tide of battle turned by
Desaix's desperate attack and Kellermann's terrific charge, so Chesnel
in the midst of defeat saw the beginnings of victory. No one but a
Chesnel, an old notary, an ex-steward of the manor, old Maitre
Sorbier's junior clerk, in the sudden flash of lucidity which comes
with despair, could rise thus, high as a Napoleon, nay, higher. This
was not Marengo, it was Waterloo, and the Prussians had come up;
Chesnel saw this, and was determined to beat them off the field.

"Madame," he said, "remember that I have been your man of business for
twenty years; remember that if the d'Esgrignons mean the honor of the
province, you represent the honor of the bourgeoisie; it rests with
you, and you alone, to save the ancient house. Now, answer me; are you
going to allow dishonor to fall on the shade of your dead uncle, on
the d'Esgrignons, on poor Chesnel? Do you want to kill Mlle. Armande
weeping yonder? Or do you wish to expiate wrongs done to others by a
deed which will rejoice your ancestors, the intendants of the dukes of
Alencon, and bring comfort to the soul of our dear Abbe? If he could
rise from his grave, he would command you to do this thing that I beg
of you upon my knees."

"What is it?" asked Mme. du Croisier.

"Well. Here are the hundred thousand crowns," said Chesnel, drawing
the bundles of notes from his pocket. "Take them, and there will be an
end of it."

"If that is all," she began, "and if no harm can come of it to my
husband----"

"Nothing but good," Chesnel replied. "You are saving him from eternal
punishment in hell, at the cost of a slight disappointment here
below."

"He will not be compromised, will he?" she asked, looking into
Chesnel's face.

Then Chesnel read the depths of the poor wife's mind. Mme. du Croisier
was hesitating between her two creeds; between wifely obedience to her
husband as laid down by the Church, and obedience to the altar and the
throne. Her husband, in her eyes, was acting wrongly, but she dared
not blame him; she would fain save the d'Esgrignons, but she was loyal
to her husband's interests.