. Emerging gracefully from
the shadow of the rest of the room, four youthful faces, fair or dark,
smiling or engrossed, bent forward in the warm, cheerful rays, which
illumined them to the level of the eyes and seemed to feed the fire of
their glances, the radiant youth beneath their transparent brows, to
watch over them, to shelter them, to protect them from the black cold
wind without, from ghosts, pitfalls, misery and terror, from all the
sinister things that lurk in an out-of-the-way quarter of Paris on a
winter's night.

Thus assembled in a small room near the top of the deserted house, in
the warmth and security of its neatly kept and comfortable home, the
Joyeuse family resembles a family of birds in a nest at the top of a
tall tree. They sew and read and talk a little. A burst of flame, the
crackling of the fire, are the only sounds to be heard, save for an
occasional exclamation from M. Joyeuse, who sits just outside of his
little circle, hiding in the shadow his anxious brow and all the
vagaries of his imagination. Now he fancies that, in the midst of the
distress by which he is overwhelmed, the absolute necessity of
confessing everything to his children to-night, to-morrow at latest,
unforeseen succor comes to him. Hemerlingue, seized with remorse, sends
to him, to all the others who worked on the Tunisian loan, the
accustomed December bonus. It is brought by a tall footman: "From
Monsieur le Baron." The _Imaginaire_ says this aloud. The pretty faces
turn to look at him; they laugh and move about, and the poor wretch
wakes with a start.

Oh! how he reviles himself now for his delay in confessing everything,
for the fallacious security which he has encouraged in his home and
which he will have to destroy at one blow. Why need he have criticised
that Tunisian loan? He even blames himself now for having declined a
position at the _Caisse Territoriale_. Had he the right to decline it?
Ah! what a pitiful head of a family, who lacked strength to maintain
or to defend the welfare of his dear ones. And, in presence of the
charming group sitting within the rays of the lamp, whose tranquil
aspect is in such glaring contrast to his inward agitation, he is
seized with remorse, which assails his feeble mind so fiercely that
his secret comes to his lips, is on the point of escaping him in
an outburst of sobs, when a ring at the bell--not an imaginary
ring--startles them all and checks him as he is about to speak.

Who