sant grandfather
had had ten children; his father, the army contractor, had been content
with six; and he himself had two, a boy and a girl, and deemed even that
number more than was right.

One part of Seguin's fortune consisted of an estate of some twelve
hundred acres--woods and heaths--above Janville, which his father had
purchased with some of his large gains after retiring from business.
The old man's long-caressed dream had been to return in triumph to his
native village, whence he had started quite poor, and he was on the
point of there building himself a princely residence in the midst of a
vast park when death snatched him away. Almost the whole of this estate
had come to Seguin in his share of the paternal inheritance, and he had
turned the shooting rights to some account by dividing them into shares
of five hundred francs value, which his friends eagerly purchased. The
income derived from this source was, however, but a meagre one. Apart
from the woods there was only uncultivated land on the estate, marshes,
patches of sand, and fields of stones; and for centuries past the
opinion of the district had been that no agriculturist could ever turn
the expanse to good account. The defunct army contractor alone had been
able to picture there a romantic park, such as he had dreamt of creating
around his regal abode. It was he, by the way, who had obtained an
authorization to add to the name of Seguin that of Du Hordel--taken from
a ruined tower called the Hordel which stood on the estate.

It was through Beauchene, one of the shareholders of the shooting
rights, that Mathieu had made Seguin's acquaintance, and had discovered
the old hunting-box, the lonely, quiet pavilion, which had pleased him
so much that he had rented it. Valentine, who good-naturedly treated
Marianne as a poor friend, had even been amiable enough to visit her
there, and had declared the situation of the place to be quite poetical,
laughing the while over her previous ignorance of it like one who had
known nothing of her property. In reality she herself would not have
lived there for an hour. Her husband had launched her into the
feverish life of literary, artistic, and social Paris, hurrying her
to gatherings, studios, exhibitions, theatres, and other pleasure
resorts--all those brasier-like places where weak heads and wavering
hearts are lost. He himself, amid all his passion for show, felt bored
to death everywhere, and was at ease only among