“Need you say that to me?  But only a few days more, and no living man will be able to expose me.  Besides, Monsieur de Maulincour is beyond the faculty of remembering.  Come, dry your tears, my silly child, and think—­”

At this instant a terrible cry rang from the room in which Jules Desmarets was stationed.

The clamor was heard by Madame Jules and Ferragus through the opening of the wall, and struck them with terror.

“Go and see what it means, Clemence,” said her father.

Clemence ran rapidly down the little staircase, found the door into Madame Gruget’s apartment wide open, heard the cries which echoed from the upper floor, went up the stairs, guided by the noise of sobs, and caught these words before she entered the fatal chamber:—­

“You, monsieur, you, with your horrid inventions,—­you are the cause of her death!”

“Hush, miserable woman!” replied Jules, putting his handkerchief on the mouth of the old woman, who began at once to cry out, “Murder! help!”

At this instant Clemence entered, saw her husband, uttered a cry, and fled away.

“Who will save my child?” cried the widow Gruget.  “You have murdered her.”

“How?” asked Jules, mechanically, for he was horror-struck at being seen by his wife.

“Read that,” said the old woman, giving him a letter.  “Can money or annuities console me for that?”

Farewell, mother!  I bequeeth you what I have.  I beg your pardon for my forlts, and the last greef to which I put you by ending my life in the river.  Henry, who I love more than myself, says I have made his misfortune, and as he has drifen me away, and I have lost all my hops of merrying him, I am going to droun myself.  I shall go abov Neuilly, so that they can’t put me in the Morg.  If Henry does not hate me anny more after I am ded, ask him to berry a pore girl whose hart beet for him only, and to forgif me, for I did rong to meddle in what didn’t consern me.  Tak care of his wounds.  How much he sufered, pore fellow!  I shall have as much corage to kill myself as he had to burn his bak.  Carry home the corsets I have finished.  And pray God for your daughter.

Ida.

“Take this letter to Monsieur de Funcal, who is upstairs,” said Jules.  “He alone can save your daughter, if there is still time.”

So saying he disappeared, running like a man who has committed a crime.  His legs trembled.  The hot blood poured into his swelling heart in torrents greater than at any other moment of his life, and left it again with untold violence.  Conflicting thoughts struggled in his mind, and yet one thought predominated,—­he had not been loyal to the being he loved most.  It was impossible for him to argue with his conscience, whose voice, rising high with conviction, came like an echo of those inward cries of his love during the cruel hours of doubt he had lately lived through.