Presently Balthazar appeared to waken; he looked quickly about him, and said,—­

“Vespers?  Ah, yes! the children are at vespers.”

He made a few steps forward, and looked into the garden, where magnificent tulips were growing on all sides; then he suddenly stopped short as if brought up against a wall, and cried out,—­

“Why should they not combine within a given time?”

“Is he going mad?” thought the wife, much terrified.

To give greater interest to the present scene, which was called forth by the situation of their affairs, it is absolutely necessary to glance back at the past lives of Balthazar Claes and the granddaughter of the Duke of Casa-Real.

Towards the year 1783, Monsieur Balthazar Claes-Molina de Nourho, then twenty-two years of age, was what is called in France a fine man.  He came to finish his education in Paris, where he acquired excellent manners in the society of Madame d’Egmont, Count Horn, the Prince of Aremberg, the Spanish ambassador, Helvetius, and other Frenchmen originally from Belgium, or coming lately thence, whose birth or wealth won them admittance among the great seigneurs who at that time gave the tone to social life.  Young Claes found several relations and friends ready to launch him into the great world at the very moment when that world was about to fall.  Like other young men, he was at first more attracted by glory and science than by the vanities of life.  He frequented the society of scientific men, particularly Lavoisier, who at that time was better known to the world for his enormous fortune as a “fermier-general” than for his discoveries in chemistry,—­though later the great chemist was to eclipse the man of wealth.

Balthazar grew enamored of the science which Lavoisier cultivated, and became his devoted disciple; but he was young, and handsome as Helvetius, and before long the Parisian women taught him to distil wit and love exclusively.  Though he had studied chemistry with such ardor that Lavoisier commended him, he deserted science and his master for those mistresses of fashion and good taste from whom young men take finishing lessons in knowledge of life, and learn the usages of good society, which in Europe forms, as it were, one family.

The intoxicating dream of social success lasted but a short time.  Balthazar left Paris, weary of a hollow existence which suited neither his ardent soul nor his loving heart.  Domestic life, so calm, so tender, which the very name of Flanders recalled to him, seemed far more fitted to his character and to the aspirations of his heart.  No gilded Parisian salon had effaced from his mind the harmonies of the panelled parlor and the little garden where his happy childhood had slipped away.  A man must needs be without a home to remain in Paris, —­Paris, the city of cosmopolitans, of men who wed the world, and clasp her with the arms of Science, Art, or Power.