When Charles Mignon read his daughter’s letter of farewell he instantly despatched Madame Dumay to Paris.  The family gave out that a journey to another climate had suddenly been advised for Caroline by their physician; and the physician himself sustained the excuse, though unable to prevent some gossip in the society of Havre.  “Such a vigorous young girl! with the complexion of a Spaniard, and that black hair!—­she consumptive!” “Yes, they say she committed some imprudence.”  “Ah, ah!” cried a Vilquin.  “I am told she came back bathed in perspiration after riding on horseback, and drank iced water; at least, that is what Dr. Troussenard says.”

By the time Madame Dumay returned to Havre the catastrophe of the failure had taken place, and society paid no further attention to the absence of Bettina or the return of the cashier’s wife.  At the beginning of 1827 the newspapers rang with the trial of Charles d’Estourny, who was found guilty of cheating at cards.  The young corsair escaped into foreign parts without taking thought of Mademoiselle Mignon, who was of little value to him since the failure of the bank.  Bettina heard of his infamous desertion and of her father’s ruin almost at the same time.  She returned home struck by death, and wasted away in a short time at the Chalet.  Her death at least protected her reputation.  The illness that Monsieur Mignon alleged to be the cause of her absence, and the doctor’s order which sent her to Nice were now generally believed.  Up to the last moment the mother hoped to save her daughter’s life.  Bettina was her darling and Modeste was the father’s.  There was something touching in the two preferences.  Bettina was the image of Charles, just as Modeste was the reproduction of her mother.  Both parents continued their love for each other in their children.  Bettina, a daughter of Provence, inherited from her father the beautiful hair, black as a raven’s wing, which distinguishes the women of the South, the brown eye, almond-shaped and brilliant as a star, the olive tint, the velvet skin as of some golden fruit, the arched instep, and the Spanish waist from which the short basque skirt fell crisply.  Both mother and father were proud of the charming contrast between the sisters.  “A devil and an angel!” they said to each other, laughing, little thinking it prophetic.

After weeping for a month in the solitude of her chamber, where she admitted no one, the mother came forth at last with injured eyes.  Before losing her sight altogether she persisted, against the wishes of her friends, in visiting her daughter’s grave, on which she riveted her gaze in contemplation.  That image remained vivid in the darkness which now fell upon her, just as the red spectrum of an object shines in our eyes when we close them in full daylight.  This terrible and double misfortune made Dumay, not less devoted, but more anxious about Modeste, now the only daughter of the father who was unaware of his loss.  Madame Dumay, idolizing Modeste, like