? No one. More than that, if you speak
to them of disinterestedness, they will laugh in your face. If the thing
fails, on the other hand, who is to pay? You. And they will call you a
dunce into the bargain."

Count Ville-Handry shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly; and then
he said, taking his wife by the hand,--

"Would you love me less if I were ruined?"

She looked at him with her beautiful eyes as if overflowing with
affection, and replied in a voice full of emotion,--

"God is my witness, my friend, that I should be delighted to be able to
prove to you that I did not think of money when I married you."

"Sarah!" cried the count in ecstasy, "Sarah, my darling, that was a word
worth the whole of that fortune which you blame me for risking."

Even if Henrietta had been more disposed to mistrust appearances,
she would never have supposed that the whole scene was most cunningly
devised for the purpose of impressing upon the count's feeble intellect
this idea more forcibly than ever. She was rather inclined to believe,
and she did believe, that this Petroleum Society, conceived by Sir
Thorn, was unpleasant to the countess; and that thus discord reigned in
the enemy's camp.

The result of her meditations was a long letter to a gentleman for whom
her mother had always entertained a great esteem, the Duke of Champdoce.
After having explained to him her situation, she told him all that she
knew of the new enterprise, and besought him to interfere whilst it was
yet time.

When she had written her letter, she gave it to Clarissa, urging her
to carry it immediately to its address. Alas! the poor girl was rapidly
approaching an incident which was to bring about a crisis.

Having by chance followed the maid down stairs, she saw her go into the
Countess Sarah's room, and hand her the letter.

Was Henrietta thus betrayed even by the girl whom she thought so fully
devoted to her interests, and since when? Perhaps from the first
day. Ah, how many things this explained to her which she had hitherto
wondered at as perfectly incomprehensible!

This last infamy, however, tempted her to lay aside for once her
carefully-nursed reserve. She rushed into the room, crimson with shame
and wrath, and said in a fierce tone,--

"Give me that letter, madam!"

Clarissa had fled when she saw her treachery discovered.

"This letter," replied the countess coldly, "I shall hand to your
father, madam, as it is my duty to do."

"