The young man was standing sorrowful by the open window.  He could have seen the sailing-boats in the bay, the sailing clouds in the sky placidly floating over a world of serene and verdurous loveliness.  But his vision was all inward, of the piteous calm, following storm and disaster, in which the dying voice from the bed was like the lapping of little waves.

He came at once and stood over Plancine, not daring to touch her.

“It was not wilfulness, but my great love,” said the broken, gentle voice, “that made the condition.  All of you I cannot extol, knowing what I have known.  But you are an honest gentleman and a true, my brave; and you shall make this dearest a noble husband.”

Waveringly George stole his hand towards the bowed head and let it rest there.

From the battered face a smile broke like flowers from a blasted soil.

“Withholding my countenance only as I foresaw the means to enrich you both were approaching my grasp, I waited for the hill to break away that I might recover my casket.  It was there—­it is here; and now my Plancine shall never know poverty more, or her husband restrict the scope of his so admirable art on the score of necessity.”

He saw the eyes questioning what the lips would not ask.

“But how I lost it?” he said.  “I took the box; I obeyed her behests.  The moment was acute; the times peremptory.  I sailed for England, hurriedly and secretly, never to this day having feasted my eyes on what lies within there.  With me went Lacombe, Madame’s ‘runner’ in the old days—­a stolid Berrichon, who had lived upon her bounty to the end.  The rogue! the ingrate!  We were wrecked upon this coast; we plunged and came ashore.  I know not who were lost or saved; but Lacombe and I clung together and were thrown upon the land, the box still in my grasp.  We climbed the cliffs where a stair had been cut; we broke eastwards from the upper slopes and staggered on through the blown darkness.  Suddenly Lacombe stopped.  The day was faint then on the watery horizon; and in the ghostly light I saw his face and read the murder in it.  We were standing on the verge of the cleft under Black Venn.  ‘No further!’ he whispered.  ‘You must go down there!’ He snatched the box from my hand.  In the instant of his doing so, stricken by the death terror, the affection to which I was then much subject seized me.  I screamed, ’My God! the guillotine!’ Taken by surprise, he started back, staggered, and went down crashing to the fate he had designed for me.  I seemed to lie prostrate for hours, while his moans came up fainter and fainter till they ceased.  Then I rose and faced life, lonely, friendless, and a beggar.”

The restless wandering of his eyes travelled over his daughter’s head to the rusty casket by the window.

“It was very well,” he whispered.  “I thank my God that He has permitted me at the perfect moment to realize my investment in that dead rascal’s dishonesty.  Have I ever desired wealth save for my little pouponne here?  And I have sorely tried thee, my George.  But the old naturalist had such faith in his prediction.  Now—­”