grief: the heart, too full,
was forced to overflow beneath the pressure of this new misery.

"What can we do; what will become of us? He sees nothing, he cares for
nothing,--neither for us nor for himself. I know not how he can live in
that garret, where the air is stifling."

"What can you expect of a man who calls incessantly, like Richard III.,
'My kingdom for a horse'?" said Emmanuel. "He is pitiless; and in that
you must imitate him. Pay his notes; give him, if you will, your whole
fortune; but that of your sister and of your brothers is neither yours
nor his."

"Give him my fortune?" she said, pressing her lover's hand and looking
at him with ardor in her eyes; "you advise it, you!--and Pierquin told a
hundred lies to make me keep it!"

"Alas! I may be selfish in my own way," he said. "Sometimes I long for
you without fortune; you seem nearer to me then! At other times I want
you rich and happy, and I feel how paltry it is to think that the poor
grandeurs of wealth can separate us."

"Dear, let us not speak of ourselves."

"Ourselves!" he repeated, with rapture. Then, after a pause, he added:
"The evil is great, but it is not irreparable."

"It can be repaired only by us: the Claes family has now no head.
To reach the stage of being neither father nor man, to have no
consciousness of justice or injustice (for, in defiance of the laws, he
has dissipated--he, so great, so noble, so upright--the property of
the children he was bound to defend), oh, to what depths must he have
fallen! My God! what is this thing he seeks?"

"Unfortunately, dear Marguerite, wrong as he is in his relation to his
family, he is right scientifically. A score of men in Europe admire him
for the very thing which others count as madness. But nevertheless
you must, without scruple, refuse to let him take the property of his
children. Great discoveries have always been accidental. If your father
ever finds the solution of the problem, it will be when it costs him
nothing; in a moment, perhaps, when he despairs of it."

"My poor mother is happy," said Marguerite; "she would have suffered
a thousand deaths before she died: as it was, her first encounter with
Science killed her. Alas! the strife is endless."

"There is an end," said Emmanuel. "When you have nothing left, Monsieur
Claes can get no further credit; then he will stop."

"Let him stop now, then," cried Marguerite, "for we are without a
penny!"

Monsieur de Solis went to b