Minoret had that morning received a confidential letter from his son asking him for information as to what was happening in connection with Ursula, information that he desired to obtain before going to Nemours with the procureur du roi to place her under shelter from these atrocities in the convent of the Adoration.  Desire exhorted his father, in case this persecution should be the work of any of their friends, to give to whoever it might be warning and good advice; for even if the law could not punish this crime it would certainly discover the truth and hold it over the delinquent’s head.  Minoret had now attained a great object.  Owner of the chateau du Rouvre, one of the finest estates in the Gatinais, he had also a rent-roll of some forty odd thousand francs a year from the rich domains which surrounded the park.  He could well afford to snap his fingers at Goupil.  Besides, he intended to live on the estate, where the sight of Ursula would no longer trouble him.

“My boy,” he said to Goupil, as they walked along the terrace, “let my young cousin alone, now.”

“Pooh!” said the clerk, unable to imagine what capricious conduct meant.

“Oh!  I’m not ungrateful; you have enabled me to get this fine brick chateau with the stone copings (which couldn’t be built now for two hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park and gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs.  No, I’m not ungrateful; I’ll give you ten per cent, twenty thousand francs, for your services, and you can buy a sheriff’s practice in Nemours.  I’ll guarantee you a marriage with one of Cremiere’s daughters, the eldest.”

“The one who talks piston!” cried Goupil.

“She’ll have thirty thousand francs,” replied Minoret.  “Don’t you see, my dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a post master?  People should keep to their vocation.”

“Very well, then,” said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his hopes; “here’s a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand francs; I want the money in hand at once.”

Minoret had eighteen thousand francs by him at that moment of which his wife knew nothing.  He thought the best way to get rid of Goupil was to sign the draft.  The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial fever on the face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him an “au revoir,” by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which would have made any one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation of the magnificent chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis XIII., tremble in his shoes.

“Are you not going to wait for me?” he cried, observing that Goupil was going away on foot.

“You’ll find me on our path, never fear, papa Minoret,” replied Goupil, athirst for vengeance and resolved to know the meaning of the zigzags of Minoret’s strange conduct.