“That?” said the man, nodding to the villa.

“Yes, my friend.”

“Oh, that belongs to Monsieur Vilquin, the richest shipping merchant in Havre, so rich he doesn’t know what he is worth.”

“There is no Cardinal Vilquin that I know of in history,” thought Ernest, as he walked back to Havre for the night mail to Paris.  Naturally he questioned the postmaster about the Vilquin family, and learned that it possessed an enormous fortune.  Monsieur Vilquin had a son and two daughters, one of whom was married to Monsieur Althor, junior.  Prudence kept La Briere from seeming anxious about the Vilquins; the postmaster was already looking at him slyly.

“Is there there any one staying with them at the present moment,” he asked, “besides the family?”

“The d’Herouville family is there just now.  They do talk of a marriage between the young duke and the remaining Mademoiselle Vilquin.”

“Ha!” thought Ernest; “there was a celebrated Cardinal d’Herouville under the Valois, and a terrible marshal whom they made a duke in the time of Henri IV.”

Ernest returned to Paris having seen enough of Modeste to dream of her, and to think that, whether she were rich or whether she were poor, if she had a noble soul he would like to make her Madame de La Briere; and so thinking, he resolved to continue the correspondence.

Ah! you poor women of France, try to remain hidden if you can; try to weave the least little romance about your lives in the midst of a civilization which posts in the public streets the hours when the coaches arrive and depart; which counts all letters and stamps them twice over, first with the hour when they are thrown into the boxes, and next with that of their delivery; which numbers the houses, prints the tax of every tenant on a metal register at the doors (after verifying its particulars), and will soon possess one vast register of every inch of its territory down to the smallest parcel of land, and the most insignificant features of it,—­a giant work ordained by a giant.  Try, imprudent young ladies, to escape not only the eye of the police, but the incessant chatter which takes place in a country town about the veriest trifles,—­how many dishes the prefect has at his dessert, how many slices of melon are left at the door of some small householder,—­which strains its ear to catch the chink of the gold a thrifty man lays by, and spends its evenings in calculating the incomes of the village and the town and the department.  It was mere chance that enabled Modeste to escape discovery through Ernest’s reconnoitring expedition,—­a step which he already regretted; but what Parisian can allow himself to be the dupe of a little country girl?  Incapable of being duped! that horrid maxim is the dissolvent of all noble sentiments in man.

We can readily guess the struggle of feeling to which this honest young fellow fell a prey when we read the letter that he now indited, in which every stroke of the flail which scourged his conscience will be found to have left its trace.