Place your money in the Grand-Livre in Gabriel's name: it will bring you
twelve or thirteen thousand francs a year. Minors who are emancipated
cannot sell property without permission of the family council; you will
thus gain three years' peace of mind. By that time your father will
either have solved his problem or renounced it; and Gabriel, then of
age, will reinvest the money in your own name."

Marguerite made him explain to her once more the legal points which she
did not at first understand. It was certainly a novel sight to see this
pair of lovers poring over the Code, which Emmanuel had brought with him
to show his mistress the laws which protected the property of
minors; she quickly caught the meaning of them, thanks to the natural
penetration of women, which in this case love still further sharpened.

Gabriel came home to his father's house on the following day. When
Monsieur de Solis brought him up to Balthazar and told of his admission
to the Ecole Polytechnique, the father thanked the professor with a wave
of his hand, and said:--

"I am very glad; Gabriel may become a man of science."

"Oh, my brother," cried Marguerite, as Balthazar went back to his
laboratory, "work hard, waste no money; spend what is necessary, but
practise economy. On the days when you are allowed to go out, pass your
time with our friends and relations; contract none of the habits which
ruin young men in Paris. Your expenses will amount to nearly three
thousand francs, and that will leave you a thousand francs for your
pocket-money; that is surely enough."

"I will answer for him," said Emmanuel de Solis, laying his hand on his
pupil's shoulder.

A month later, Monsieur Conyncks, in conjunction with Marguerite,
had obtained all necessary securities from Claes. The plan so wisely
proposed by Emmanuel de Solis was fully approved and executed. Face to
face with the law, and in presence of his cousin, whose stern sense
of honor allowed no compromise, Balthazar, ashamed of the sale of the
timber to which he had consented at a moment when he was harassed by
creditors, submitted to all that was demanded of him. Glad to repair the
almost involuntary wrong that he had done to his children, he signed the
deeds in a preoccupied way. He was now as careless and improvident as a
Negro who sells his wife in the morning for a drop of brandy, and cries
for her at night. He gave no thought to even the immediate future, and
never asked himself what