The baron left the room staggering like a drunken man.  The doctor followed and supported him by the arm until he saw him safely down the staircase.

An hour later Auguste de Mergi entered the doctor’s room.  On questioning the porter at the hospital the unhappy lad heard that his grandfather had been refused an entrance and had gone away to find Monsieur Halpersohn, who could probably give information about him.  As Auguste entered the doctor’s study Halpersohn was breakfasting on a cup of chocolate and a glass of water.  He did not disturb himself at the young man’s entrance, but went on sopping his bread in the chocolate; for he never ate anything for breakfast but a small roll cut into four strips with careful precision.

“Well, young man,” he said, glancing at Vanda’s son, “so you have come, too, to find out about your mother?”

“Yes, monsieur;” replied Auguste de Mergi.

Auguste was standing near the table on which lay several bank-notes among a pile of gold louis.  Under the circumstances in which the unhappy boy was placed the temptation was stronger than his principles, solid as they were.  He saw a means of saving his grandfather and the fruits of almost a lifetime of toil.  He yielded.  The fascination was rapid as thought; and it was justified to the child’s mind by the idea of self-devotion.  “I destroy myself, but I save my mother and my grandfather,” he thought.  Under the strain put upon his reason by this criminal temptation he acquired, like madmen, a singular and momentary dexterity.

Halpersohn, an experienced observer, had divined, retrospectively, the life of the old man and that of the lad and of the mother.  He felt or perceived the truth; the Baronne de Mergi’s remarks had helped to unveil it to him; and the result was a feeling of benevolent pity for his new clients.  As for respect or admiration, he was incapable of those emotions.

“Well, my dear boy,” he replied familiarly, “I am taking care of your mother, and I shall return her to you young and handsome and perfectly well in health.  Here is one of those rare cases in which physicians take an interest.  Besides, through her mother, she is a compatriot of mine.  You and your grandfather must for two weeks have the courage to keep away from Madame—?”

“The Baronne de Mergi.”

“Ah! if she is a baroness, you must be a baron,” remarked Halpersohn.

At that instant the theft was accomplished.  While the doctor was looking at his sopped bread heavy with chocolate, Auguste snatched four notes and put them into his pocket, as if he were merely putting his hand there by accident.

“Yes, monsieur,” he replied, “I am a baron, and so is my grandfather; he was attorney-general under the Restoration.”

“You blush, young man; there’s no need to blush for being a poor baron; that’s common enough.”

“Who told you, monsieur, that we are poor?”