intentions with the circumlocution natural to
persons who dare not face a difficulty.

"Madame," he said, choosing a moment when Natalie was absent from the
room, "you know, of course, what a family notary is. Mine is a worthy
old man, to whom it would be a sincere grief if he were not entrusted
with the drawing of my marriage contract."

"Why, of course!" said Madame Evangelista, interrupting him, "but are
not marriage contracts always made by agreement of the notaries of both
families?"

The time that Paul took to reply to this question was occupied by Madame
Evangelista in asking herself, "What is he thinking of?" for women
possess in an eminent degree the art of reading thoughts from the play
of countenance. She divined the instigations of the great-aunt in the
embarrassed glance and the agitated tone of voice which betrayed an
inward struggle in Paul's mind.

"At last," she thought to herself, "the fatal day has come; the crisis
begins--how will it end? My notary is Monsieur Solonet," she said, after
a pause. "Yours, I think you said, is Monsieur Mathias; I will invite
them to dinner to-morrow, and they can come to an understanding then. It
is their business to conciliate our interests without our interference;
just as good cooks are expected to furnish good food without
instructions."

"Yes, you are right," said Paul, letting a faint sigh of relief escape
from him.

By a singular transposition of parts, Paul, innocent of all wrong-doing,
trembled, while Madame Evangelista, though a prey to the utmost anxiety,
was outwardly calm.

The widow owed her daughter one-third of the fortune left by Monsieur
Evangelista,--namely, nearly twelve hundred thousand francs,--and she
knew herself unable to pay it, even by taking the whole of her property
to do so. She would therefore be placed at the mercy of a son-in-law.
Though she might be able to control Paul if left to himself, would he,
when enlightened by his notary, agree to release her from rendering her
account as guardian of her daughter's patrimony? If Paul withdrew
his proposals all Bordeaux would know the reason and Natalie's future
marriage would be made impossible. This mother, who desired the
happiness of her daughter, this woman, who from infancy had lived
honorably, was aware that on the morrow she must become dishonest. Like
those great warriors who fain would blot from their lives the moment
when they had felt a secret cowardice, she ardently desired