of indispensable crimes.

The thought of disaster as a result of Lucien's weakness--for his
experience of an underground cell would certainly have turned
his brain--took vast proportions in Jacques Collin's mind; and,
contemplating the probabilities of such a misfortune, the unhappy
man felt his eyes fill with tears, a phenomenon that had been utterly
unknown to him since his earliest childhood.

"I must be in a furious fever," said he to himself; "and perhaps if
I send for the doctor and offer him a handsome sum, he will put me in
communication with Lucien."

At this moment the turnkey brought in his dinner.

"It is quite useless my boy; I cannot eat. Tell the governor of this
prison to send the doctor to see me. I am very bad, and I believe my
last hour has come."

Hearing the guttural rattle that accompanied these words, the warder
bowed and went. Jacques Collin clung wildly to this hope; but when he
saw the doctor and the governor come in together, he perceived that
the attempt was abortive, and coolly awaited the upshot of the visit,
holding out his wrist for the doctor to feel his pulse.

"The Abbe is feverish," said the doctor to Monsieur Gault, "but it is
the type of fever we always find in inculpated prisoners--and to me,"
he added, in the governor's ear, "it is always a sign of some degree of
guilt."

Just then the governor, to whom the public prosecutor had intrusted
Lucien's letter to be given to Jacques Collin, left the doctor and the
prisoner together under the guard of the warder, and went to fetch the
letter.

"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin, seeing the warder outside the door,
and not understanding why the governor had left them, "I should think
nothing of thirty thousand francs if I might send five lines to Lucien
de Rubempre."

"I will not rob you of your money," said Doctor Lebrun; "no one in this
world can ever communicate with him again----"

"No one?" said the prisoner in amazement. "Why?"

"He has hanged himself----"

No tigress robbed of her whelps ever startled an Indian jungle with a
yell so fearful as that of Jacques Collin, who rose to his feet as a
tiger rears to spring, and fired a glance at the doctor as scorching
as the flash of a falling thunderbolt. Then he fell back on the bed,
exclaiming:

"Oh, my son!"

"Poor man!" said the doctor, moved by this terrific convulsion of
nature.

In fact, the first explosion gave way to such utter collapse, that the
words, "Oh, my