“Well, my poor Birotteau!” said du Tillet, with a stealthy glance.

“Poor!” exclaimed the debtor proudly, “I am very rich.  I shall lay my head this night upon my pillow with the happiness of knowing that I have paid you in full.”

This speech, ringing with integrity, sent a sharp pang through du Tillet.  In spite of the esteem he publicly enjoyed, he did not esteem himself; an inextinguishable voice cried aloud within his soul, “The man is sublime!”

“Pay me?” he said; “why, what business are you doing?”

Feeling sure that du Tillet would not repeat what he told him, Birotteau answered:  “I shall never go back to business, monsieur.  No human power could have foreseen what has happened to me there.  Who knows that I might not be the victim of another Roguin?  But my conduct has been placed under the eyes of the king; his heart has deigned to sympathize with my efforts; he has encouraged them by sending me a sum of money large enough to—­”

“Do you want a receipt?” said du Tillet, interrupting him; “are you going to pay—­”

“In full, with interest.  I must ask you to come with me now to Monsieur Crottat, only two steps from here.”

“Before a notary?”

“Monsieur; I am not forbidden to aim at my complete reinstatement; to obtain it, all deeds and receipts must be legal and undeniable.”

“Come, then,” said du Tillet, going out with Birotteau; “it is only a step.  But where did you take all that money from?”

“I have not taken it,” said Cesar; “I have earned it by the sweat of my brow.”

“You owe an enormous sum to Claparon.”

“Alas! yes; that is my largest debt.  I think sometimes I shall die before I pay it.”

“You never can pay it,” said du Tillet harshly.

“He is right,” thought Birotteau.

As he went home the poor man passed, inadvertently, along the Rue Saint-Honore; for he was in the habit of making a circuit to avoid seeing his shop and the windows of his former home.  For the first time since his fall he saw the house where eighteen years of happiness had been effaced by the anguish of three months.

“I hoped to end my days there,” he thought; and he hastened his steps, for he caught sight of the new sign,—­

CELESTIN CREVEL

Successor to Cesar Birotteau

“Am I dazzled, am I going blind?  Was that Cesarine?” he cried, recollecting a blond head he had seen at the window.

He had actually seen his daughter, his wife, and Popinot.  The lovers knew that Birotteau never passed before the windows of his old home, and they had come to the house to make arrangements for a fete which they intended to give him.  This amazing apparition so astonished Birotteau that he stood stock-still, unable to move.

“There is Monsieur Birotteau looking at his old house,” said Monsieur Molineux to the owner of a shop opposite to “The Queen of Roses.”