al demoralization. Some business was still done, because an
established house will go on alone for years by force of the first
impetus; but what ruin, what chaos beneath that apparent prosperity?

Sigismond knew it better than any one, and as if to see his way more
clearly amid the multitude of painful thoughts which whirled madly
through his brain, the cashier lighted his candle, sat down on his bed,
and thought, "Where were they to find that hundred thousand francs?"

"Take the notes back. I have no funds to meet them."

No, no! That was not possible. Any sort of humiliation was preferable to
that.

"Well, it's decided. I will go to-morrow," sighed the poor cashier.

And he tossed about in torture, unable to close an eye until morning.

Notwithstanding the late hour, Georges Fromont had not yet retired. He
was sitting by the fire, with his head in his hands, in the blind and
dumb concentration due to irreparable misfortune, thinking of Sidonie, of
that terrible Sidonie who was asleep at that moment on the floor above.
She was positively driving him mad. She was false to him, he was sure of
it,--she was false to him with the Toulousan tenor, that Cazabon, alias
Cazaboni, whom Madame Dobson had brought to the house. For a long time he
had implored her not to receive that man; but Sidonie would not listen to
him, and on that very day, speaking of a grand ball she was about to
give, she had declared explicitly that nothing should prevent her
inviting her tenor.

"Then he's your lover!" Georges had exclaimed angrily, his eyes gazing
into hers.

She had not denied it; she had not even turned her eyes away.

And to think that he had sacrificed everything to that woman--his
fortune, his honor, even his lovely Claire, who lay sleeping with her
child in the adjoining room--a whole lifetime of happiness within reach
of his hand, which he had spurned for that vile creature! Now she had
admitted that she did not love him, that she loved another. And he, the
coward, still longed for her. In heaven's name, what potion had she given
him?

Carried away by indignation that made the blood boil in his veins,
Georges Fromont started from his armchair and strode feverishly up and
down the room, his footsteps echoing in the silence of the sleeping house
like living insomnia. The other was asleep upstairs. She could sleep by
favor of her heedless, remorseless nature. Perhaps, too, she was thinking
of her Cazaboni.

When that tho