s friends
have deserted him; shall I, his daughter, also abandon him? Ah! if I
did that, I should be the vilest, the most cowardly of creatures! If
my father, yesterday, when I believed him the owner of Sairmeuse, had
demanded the sacrifice to which I consented last evening, I might,
perhaps, have resolved upon the extreme measure you have counselled. In
broad daylight I might have left Sairmeuse on the arm of my lover. It
is not the world that I fear! But if one might consent to fly from the
chateau of a rich and happy father, one _cannot_ consent to desert the
poor abode of a despairing and penniless parent. Leave me, Maurice,
where honor holds me. It will not be difficult for me, who am the
daughter of generations of peasants, to become a peasant. Go! I cannot
endure more! Go! and remember that one cannot be utterly wretched if
one's conscience is clean, and one's duty fulfilled!"

Maurice was about to reply, when a crackling of dry branches made him
turn his head.

Scarcely ten paces off, Martial de Sairmeuse was standing motionless,
leaning upon his gun.

CHAPTER X

The Duc de Sairmeuse had slept little and poorly on the night following
his return, or his restoration, as he styled it.

Inaccessible, as he pretended to be, to the emotions which agitate the
common herd, the scenes of the day had greatly excited him.

He could not help reviewing them, although he made it the rule of his
life never to reflect.

While exposed to the scrutiny of the peasants and of his acquaintances
at the Chateau de Courtornieu, he felt that his honor required him
to appear cold and indifferent, but as soon as he had retired to the
privacy of his own chamber, he gave free vent to his excessive joy.

For his joy _was_ intense, almost verging on delirium.

Now he was forced to admit to himself the immense service Lacheneur had
rendered him in restoring Sairmeuse.

This poor man to whom he had displayed the blackest ingratitude, this
man, honest to heroism, whom he had treated as an unfaithful servant,
had just relieved him of an anxiety which had poisoned his life.

Lacheneur had just placed the Duc de Sairmeuse beyond the reach of a not
probable, but very possible calamity which he had dreaded for some time.

If his secret anxiety had been made known, it would have created much
merriment.

"Nonsense!" people would have exclaimed, "everyone knows that the
Sairmeuse possesses property to the amount of at least eight or