h had occurred to her as soon
as she found herself alone had brought her to this conclusion: "If Papa
Ravinet were really what Mrs. Chevassat says, that bad woman would not
have warned me against him. If she tries to keep me from accepting the
old man's assistance, she no doubt finds it to her advantage that I
should do so."

When she tried, after that, to examine as coolly as she could the
probable consequences of her decision, she found enormous chances in
her favor. If Papa Ravinet was sincere, she might be enabled to wait for
Daniel; if he was not sincere, what did she risk? She who had not feared
death itself need not fear any thing else. Lucretia's dagger will always
protect a brave woman's liberty.

But still, in spite of the pressing need she had for rest, her promise
kept her awake for the greater part of the night; for she passed in her
mind once more over the whole lamentable story of her sufferings, and
asked herself what she might confess to, and what she ought to withhold
from the old dealer. Had he not already discovered, by the address of
one of her letters, that she was the daughter of Count Ville-Handry? And
just that she would have liked to keep him from knowing. On the other
hand, was it not foolish to ask the advice of a man to whom we will not
confess the whole truth?

"I must tell him all," she said, "or nothing." And, after a moment's
reflection, she added,--"I will tell him all, and keep nothing back."
She was in this disposition, when in the morning, about nine o'clock,
Papa Ravinet reappeared in her room. He looked very pale, the old man;
and the expression of his face, and the tone of his voice, betrayed an
emotion which he could scarcely control, together with deep anxiety.

"Well?" he asked forgetting in his preoccupation to inquire even how the
poor girl had passed the night.

She shook her head sadly, and replied, pointing to a chair,--

"I have made up my mind, sir; sit down, please, and listen to me." The
old dealer had been fully convinced that Henrietta would come to that;
but he had not hoped for it so soon. He could not help exclaiming, "At
last!" and intense, almost delirious joy shone in his eyes. Even this
joy seemed to be so unnatural, that the young girl was made quite
uncomfortable by it. Fixing her eyes upon the old man with all the power
of observation of which she was capable, she said,--

"I am fully aware that what I am about to do is almost unparalleled in
rashne