“You have already been the cause of one poor boy’s death; his mother will go mourning all her days,” continued Chesnel; he saw how his words told, but he would have struck harder and even broken this woman’s heart to save Victurnien.  “Do you want to kill Mlle. Armande, for she would not survive the dishonor of the house for a week?  Do you wish to be the death of poor Chesnel, your old notary?  For I shall kill the Count in prison before they shall bring the charge against him, and take my own life afterwards, before they shall try me for murder in an Assize Court.”

“That is enough! that is enough, my friend!  I would do anything to put a stop to such an affair; but I never knew M. du Croisier’s real character until a few minutes ago.  To you I can make the admission:  there is nothing to be done.”

“But what if there is?”

“I would give half the blood in my veins that it were so,” said she, finishing her sentence by a wistful shake of the head.

As the First Consul, beaten on the field of Marengo till five o’clock in the evening, by six o’clock saw the tide of battle turned by Desaix’s desperate attack and Kellermann’s terrific charge, so Chesnel in the midst of defeat saw the beginnings of victory.  No one but a Chesnel, an old notary, an ex-steward of the manor, old Maitre Sorbier’s junior clerk, in the sudden flash of lucidity which comes with despair, could rise thus, high as a Napoleon, nay, higher.  This was not Marengo, it was Waterloo, and the Prussians had come up; Chesnel saw this, and was determined to beat them off the field.

“Madame,” he said, “remember that I have been your man of business for twenty years; remember that if the d’Esgrignons mean the honor of the province, you represent the honor of the bourgeoisie; it rests with you, and you alone, to save the ancient house.  Now, answer me; are you going to allow dishonor to fall on the shade of your dead uncle, on the d’Esgrignons, on poor Chesnel?  Do you want to kill Mlle. Armande weeping yonder?  Or do you wish to expiate wrongs done to others by a deed which will rejoice your ancestors, the intendants of the dukes of Alencon, and bring comfort to the soul of our dear Abbe?  If he could rise from his grave, he would command you to do this thing that I beg of you upon my knees.”

“What is it?” asked Mme. du Croisier.

“Well.  Here are the hundred thousand crowns,” said Chesnel, drawing the bundles of notes from his pocket.  “Take them, and there will be an end of it.”

“If that is all,” she began, “and if no harm can come of it to my husband——­”

“Nothing but good,” Chesnel replied.  “You are saving him from eternal punishment in hell, at the cost of a slight disappointment here below.”

“He will not be compromised, will he?” she asked, looking into Chesnel’s face.

Then Chesnel read the depths of the poor wife’s mind.  Mme. du Croisier was hesitating between her two creeds; between wifely obedience to her husband as laid down by the Church, and obedience to the altar and the throne.  Her husband, in her eyes, was acting wrongly, but she dared not blame him; she would fain save the d’Esgrignons, but she was loyal to her husband’s interests.