The hundred thousand francs."

"I haven't them, Monsieur Planus; I haven't anything."

"Then," said the cashier, in a strange voice, as if he were speaking to
himself, "then it means failure."

And he turned slowly away.

Failure! She sank on a chair, appalled, crushed. For the last few hours
the downfall of her happiness had caused her to forget the downfall of
the house; but she remembered now.

So her husband was ruined! In a little while, when he returned home, he
would learn of the disaster, and he would learn at the same time that his
wife and child had gone; that he was left alone in the midst of the
wreck.

Alone--that weak, easily influenced creature, who could only weep and
complain and shake his fist at life like a child! What would become of
the miserable man?

She pitied him, notwithstanding his great sin.

Then the thought came to her that she would perhaps seem to have fled at
the approach of bankruptcy, of poverty.

Georges might say to himself:

"Had I been rich, she would have forgiven me!"

Ought she to allow him to entertain that doubt?

To a generous, noble heart like Claire's nothing more than that was
necessary to change her plans. Instantly she was conscious that her
feeling of repugnance, of revolt, began to grow less bitter, and a sudden
ray of light seemed to make her duty clearer to her. When they came to
tell her that the child was dressed and the trunks ready, her mind was
made up anew.

"Never mind," she replied gently. "We are not going away."

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Abundant details which he sometimes volunteered
Exaggerated dramatic pantomime
Void in her heart, a place made ready for disasters to come
Would have liked him to be blind only so far as he was concerned

FROMONT AND RISLER

By ALPHONSE DAUDET

BOOK 4.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DAY OF RECKONING

The great clock of Saint-Gervais struck one in the morning. It was so
cold that the fine snow, flying through the air, hardened as it fell,
covering the pavements with a slippery, white blanket.

Risler, wrapped in his cloak, was hastening home from the brewery through
the deserted streets of the Marais. He had been celebrating, in company
with his two faithful borrowers, Chebe and Delobelle, his first moment of
leisure, the end of that almost endless period of seclusion during which
he had been superintending the manufacture of his press, with all the
searchings,