An early cab was passing, he jumped in, and was driven rapidly to his
hotel, on the Rue Babet-de-Jouy.

The door of the courtyard was open, but being still under the influence
of the wine he had drunk, he failed to notice a confused group of
servants and neighbors standing before the stable-doors. Upon seeing him,
these people became suddenly silent, and exchanged looks of sympathy and
compassion. Camors occupied the second floor of the hotel; and ascending
the stairs, found himself suddenly facing his father's valet. The man was
very pale, and held a sealed paper, which he extended with a trembling
hand.

"What is it, Joseph?" asked Camors.

"A letter which--which Monsieur le Comte wrote for you before he left."

"Before he left! my father is gone, then? But--where--how? What, the
devil! why do you weep?"

Unable to speak, the servant handed him the paper. Camors seized it and
tore it open.

"Good God! there is blood! what is this!" He read the first words--"My
son, life is a burden to me. I leave it--" and fell fainting to the
floor.

The poor lad loved his father, notwithstanding the past.

They carried him to his chamber.

CHAPTER III

DEBRIS FROM THE REVOLUTION

De Camors, on leaving college had entered upon life with a heart swelling
with the virtues of youth--confidence, enthusiasm, sympathy. The horrible
neglect of his early education had not corrupted in his veins those germs
of weakness which, as his father declared, his mother's milk had
deposited there; for that father, by shutting him up in a college to get
rid of him for twelve years, had rendered him the greatest service in his
power.

Those classic prisons surely do good. The healthy discipline of the
school; the daily contact of young, fresh hearts; the long familiarity
with the best works, powerful intellects, and great souls of the
ancients--all these perhaps may not inspire a very rigid morality, but
they do inspire a certain sentimental ideal of life and of duty which has
its value.

The vague heroism which Camors first conceived he brought away with him.
He demanded nothing, as you may remember, but the practical formula for
the time and country in which he was destined to live. He found,
doubtless, that the task he set himself was more difficult than he had
imagined; that the truth to which he would devote himself--but which he
must first draw from the bottom of its well--did not stand upon many
compliments. But he failed