At the sound of these words, uttered by that voice which was all-powerful over his soul, Maxence looked up.

“I thank you, my friend,” he said.  “I thank you for reminding me of what I owe to my mother and sister.  Poor women!  They are wondering, doubtless, what has become of me.”

“You must return to them,” interrupted the girl.

He got up resolutely.

“I will,” he replied.  “I should be unworthy of you if I could not raise my own energy to the level of yours.”

And, having pressed her hand, he left.  But it was not by the usual route that he reached the Rue St. Gilles.  He made a long detour, so as not to meet any of his acquaintances.

“Here you are at last,” said the servant as she opened the door.  “Madame was getting very uneasy, I can tell you.  She is in the parlor, with Mlle. Gilberte and M. Chapelain.”

It was so.  After his fruitless attempt to reach M. de Thaller, M. Chapelain had breakfasted there, and had remained, wishing, he said, to see Maxence.  And so, as soon as the young man appeared, availing himself of the privileges of his age and his old intimacy,

“How,” said he, “dare you leave your mother and sister alone in a house where some brutal creditor may come in at any moment?”

“I was wrong,” said Maxence, who preferred to plead guilty rather than attempt an explanation.

“Don’t do it again then,” resumed M. Chapelain.  “I was waiting for you to say that I was unable to see M. de Thaller, and that I do not care to face once more the impudence of his valets.  You will, therefore, have to take back the fifteen thousand francs he had brought to your father.  Place them in his own hands; and don’t give them up without a receipt.”

After some further recommendations, he went off, leaving Mme. Favoral alone at last with her children.  She was about to call Maxence to account for his absence, when Mlle. Gilberte interrupted her.

“I have to speak to you, mother,” she said with a singular precipitation, “and to you also, brother.”

And at once she began telling them of M. Costeclar’s strange visit, his inconceivable audacity, and his offensive declarations.

Maxence was fairly stamping with rage.

“And I was not here,” he exclaimed, “to put him out of the house!”

But another was there; and this was just what Mlle. Gilberte wished to come to.  But the avowal was difficult, painful even; and it was not without some degree of confusion that she resumed at last,

“You have suspected for a long time, mother, that I was hiding something from you.  When you questioned me, I lied; not that I had any thing to blush for, but because I feared for you my father’s anger.”

Her mother and her brother were gazing at her with a look of blank amazement.

“Yes, I had a secret,” she continued.  “Boldly, without consulting any one, trusting the sole inspirations of my heart, I had engaged my life to a stranger:  I had selected the man whose wife I wished to be.”