This unlooked-for happiness seemed to have been sent by cruel fate as a punishment for his past sins.  What could be more terrible than seeing this haven of rest open to him, and to be prevented from enjoying it because of his own vile plottings?

Although his conscience told him that he deserved this misery, he blamed Gaston entirely for his present torture.  Yes, he held Gaston responsible for the horrible situation in which he found himself.

His letters to Raoul for several days expressed all the fluctuations of his mind, and revealed glimpses of coming evil.

“I have twenty-five thousand livres a year,” he wrote to him, a few hours after signing the agreement of partnership; “and I possess in my own right five hundred thousand francs.  One-fourth of this sum would have made me the happiest of men a year ago.  Now it is of no use to me.  All the gold on earth could not remove one of the difficulties of our situation.  Yes, you were right.  I have been imprudent; but I pay dear for my precipitation.  We are now going down hill so rapidly that nothing can save us; we must fall to the very bottom.  To attempt stopping half way would be madness.  Rich or poor, I have cause to tremble as long as there is any risk of a meeting between Gaston and Valentine.  How can they be kept apart?  Will my brother renounce his plan of discovering the whereabouts of this woman whom he so loved?”

No; Gaston would never be turned from his search for his first love, as he proved by calling for her in the most beseeching tones when he was suffering his worst paroxysms of pain.

He grew no better.  In spite of the most careful nursing his symptoms changed, but showed no improvement.

Each attack was more violent than the preceding.

Toward the end of the week the pains left his head, and he felt well enough to get up and partake of a slight nourishment.

But poor Gaston was a mere shadow of his former self.  In one week he had aged ten years.  His strong constitution was broken.  He, who ten days ago was boasting of his vigorous health, was now weak and bent like an old man.  He could hardly drag himself along, and shivered in the warm sun as if he were bloodless.

Leaning on Louis’s arm, he slowly walked down to look at the forge, and, seating himself before a furnace at full blast, he declared that he felt very much better, that this intense heat revived him.

His pains were all gone, and he could breathe without difficulty.

His spirits rose, and he turned to the workmen gathered around, and said cheerfully: 

“I was not blessed with a good constitution for nothing, my friends, and I shall soon be well again.”

When the neighbors called to see him, and insisted that this illness was entirely owing to change of climate, Gaston replied that he supposed they were right, and that he would return to Rio as soon as he was well enough to travel.