It will be remembered, how, at his mother’s request, Maxence had spent that night in the Rue St. Gilles, and how, the next morning, unable any longer to resist his eager desire to see Mlle. Lucienne, he had started for the Hotel des Folies, leaving his sister alone at home.

He retired to his room, as she had requested him, and, sinking upon his old arm-chair in a fit of the deepest distress,

“She is singing,” he murmured:  “Mme. Fortin has not told her any thing.”

And at the same moment Mlle. Lucienne had resumed her song, the words of which reached him like a bitter raillery,

“Hope!  O sweet, deceiving word! 
Mad indeed is he,
Who does think he can trust thee,
And take thy coin can afford. 
Over his door every one
Will hang thee to his sorrow,
Then saying of days begone,
‘Cash to-day, credit to-morrow!’
’Tis very nice to run;
But to have is better fun!”

“What will she say,” thought Maxence, “when she learns the horrible truth?”

And he felt a cold perspiration starting on his temples when he remembered Mlle. Lucienne’s pride, and that honor has her only faith, the safety-plank to which she had desperately clung in the midst of the storms of her life.  What if she should leave him, now that the name he bore was disgraced!

A rapid and light step on the landing drew him from his gloomy thoughts.  Almost immediately, the door opened, and Mlle. Lucienne came in.

She must have dressed in haste; for she was just finishing hooking her dress, the simplicity of which seemed studied, so marvelously did it set off the elegance of her figure, the splendors of her waist, and the rare perfections of her shoulders and of her neck.

A look of intense dissatisfaction could be read upon her lovely features; but, as soon as she had seen Maxence, her countenance changed.

And, in fact, his look of utter distress, the disorder of his garments, his livid paleness, and the sinister look of his eyes, showed plainly enough that a great misfortune had befallen him.  In a voice whose agitation betrayed something more than the anxiety and the sympathy of a friend,

“What is the matter?  What has happened?” inquired the girl.

“A terrible misfortune,” he replied.

He was hesitating:  he wished to tell every thing at once, and knew not how to begin.

“I have told you,” he said, “that my family was very rich.”

“Yes.”

“Well, we have nothing left, absolutely nothing!” She seemed to breathe more freely, and, in a tone of friendly irony,

“And it is the loss of your fortune,” she said, “that distresses you thus?”

He raised himself painfully to his feet, and, in a low hoarse voice,

“Honor is lost too,” he uttered.

“Honor?”

“Yes.  My father has stolen:  my father has forged!”