“O great heavens!” she uttered, “where did he go when he left us?  Where is he now?  What is he doing?  What has become of him?”

Her married life had been for Mme. Favoral but a slow torture.  It was in vain that she would have looked back through her past life for some of those happy days which leave their luminous track in life, and towards which the mind turns in the hours of grief.  Vincent Favoral had never been aught but a brutal despot, abusing the resignation of his victim.  And yet, had he died, she would have wept bitterly over him in all the sincerity of her honest and simple soul.  Habit!  Prisoners have been known to shed tears over the grave of their jailer.  Then he was her husband, after all, the father of her children, the only man who existed for her.  For twenty-six years they had never been separated:  they had sat at the same table:  they had slept side by side.

Yes, she would have wept over him.  But how much less poignant would her grief have been than at this moment, when it was complicated by all the torments of uncertainty, and by the most frightful apprehensions!

Fearing lest she might take cold, her children had removed her to the sofa, and there, all shivering,

“Isn’t it horrible,” she said, “not to know any thing of your father? —­to think that at this very moment, perhaps, pursued by the police, he is wandering in despair through the streets, without daring to ask anywhere for shelter.”

Her children had no time to answer and comfort her; for at this moment the door-bell rang again.

“Who can it be now?” said Mme. Favoral with a start.

This time there was no discussion in the hall.  Steps sounded on the floor of the dining-room; the door opened; and M. Desclavettes, the old bronze-merchant, walked, or rather slipped into the parlor.

Hope, fear, anger, all the sentiments which agitated his soul, could be read on his pale and cat-like face.

“It is I,” he commenced.

Maxence stepped forward.

“Have you heard any thing from my father, sir?”

“No,” answered the old merchant, “I confess I have not; and I was just coming to see if you had yourselves.  Oh, I know very well that this is not exactly the hour to call at a house; but I thought, that, after what took place this evening, you would not be in bed yet.  I could not sleep myself.  You understand a friendship of twenty years’ standing!  So I took Mme. Desclavettes home, and here I am.”

“We feel very thankful for your kindness,” murmured Mme. Favoral.

“I am glad you do.  The fact is, you see, I take a good deal of interest in the misfortune that strikes you,—­a greater interest than any one else.  For, after all, I, too, am a victim.  I had intrusted one hundred and twenty thousand francs to our dear Vincent.”

“Alas, sir!” said Mlle. Gilberte.