“Madame,” remarked this latter, “the old boy looks to me as if he meant to play you some ill turn.”

“Pshaw! impossible; he is too stupid.”

“Piquoizeau,” said the cashier, walking into the porter’s room, “what made you let anybody come up after four o’clock?”

“I have been smoking a pipe here in the doorway ever since four o’clock,” said the man, “and nobody has gone into the bank.  Nobody has come out either except the gentlemen—­”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Yes, upon my word and honor.  Stay, though, at four o’clock M. Werbrust’s friend came, a young fellow from Messrs. du Tillet & Co., in the Rue Joubert.”

“All right,” said Castanier, and he hurried away.

The sickening sensation of heat that he had felt when he took back the pen returned in greater intensity. “Mille diables!” thought he, as he threaded his way along the Boulevard de Gand, “haven’t I taken proper precautions?  Let me think!  Two clear days, Sunday and Monday, then a day of uncertainty before they begin to look for me; altogether, three days and four nights’ respite.  I have a couple of passports and two different disguises; is not that enough to throw the cleverest detective off the scent?  On Tuesday morning I shall draw a million francs in London before the slightest suspicion has been aroused.  My debts I am leaving behind for the benefit of my creditors, who will put a ’P’[1] on the bills, and I shall live comfortably in Italy for the rest of my days as the Conte Ferraro.  I was alone with him when he died, poor fellow, in the marsh of Zembin, and I shall slip into his skin.... Mille diables! the woman who is to follow after me might give them a clew!  Think of an old campaigner like me infatuated enough to tie myself to a petticoat tail!...  Why take her?  I must leave her behind.  Yes, I could make up my mind to it; but—­I know myself—­I should be ass enough to go back for her.  Still, nobody knows Aquilina.  Shall I take her or leave her?”

  [1] Protested.

“You will not take her!” cried a voice that filled Castanier with sickening dread.  He turned sharply, and saw the Englishman.

“The devil is in it!” cried the cashier aloud.

Melmoth had passed his victim by this time; and if Castanier’s first impulse had been to fasten a quarrel on a man who read his own thoughts, he was so much torn by opposing feelings that the immediate result was a temporary paralysis.  When he resumed his walk he fell once more into that fever of irresolution which besets those who are so carried away by passion that they are ready to commit a crime, but have not sufficient strength of character to keep it to themselves without suffering terribly in the process.  So, although Castanier had made up his mind to reap the fruits of a crime which was already half executed, he hesitated to carry out his designs.  For him, as for many men of mixed character in whom weakness and strength are equally blended, the least trifling consideration determines whether they shall continue to lead blameless lives or become actively criminal.  In the vast masses of men enrolled in Napoleon’s armies there were many who, like Castanier, possessed the purely physical courage demanded on the battlefield, yet lacked the moral courage which makes a man as great in crime as he could have been in virtue.