Men in black, with solemn faces, came and bore away the body, no longer like the form of the father she had loved.  He had gone from her forever.  Pompous funeral rites, little in accordance with the crash that soon succeeded them, were superintended by Marien, who, in the absence of near relatives, took charge of everything.  He seemed to be deeply affected, and behaved with all possible kindness and consideration to Jacqueline, who could not, however, bring herself to thank him, or even to look at him.  She hated him with an increase of resentment, as if the soul of her dead father, who now knew the truth, had passed into her own.

Meantime, M. de Cymier took care to inform himself of the state of things.  It was easy enough to do so.  All Paris was talking of the shipwreck in which life and fortune had been lost by a man whose kindliness as a host at his wife’s parties every one had appreciated.  That was what came, people said, of striving after big dividends!  The house was to be sold, with the horses, the pictures, and the furniture.  What a change for his poor wife and daughter!  There were others who suffered by the Wermant crash, but those were less interesting than the De Nailles.  M. de Belvan found himself left by his father-in-law’s failure with a wife on his hands who not only had not a sou, but who was the daughter of an ‘agent de change’ who had behaved dishonorably.

This was a text for dissertations on the disgrace of marrying for money; those who had done the same thing, minus the same consequences, being loudest in reprobating alliances of that kind.  M. de Cymier listened attentively to such talk, looking and saying the right things, and as he heard more and more about the deplorable condition of M. de Nailles’s affairs, he congratulated himself that a prudent presentiment had kept him from asking the hand of Jacqueline.  He had had vague doubts as to the firm foundation of the opulence which made so charming a frame for her young beauty; it seemed to him as if she were now less beautiful than he had imagined her; the enchantment she had exercised upon him was thrown off by simple considerations of good sense.  And yet he gave a long sigh of regret when he thought she was unattainable except by marriage.  He, however, thanked heaven that he had not gone far enough to have compromised himself with her.  The most his conscience could reproach him with was an occasional imprudence in moments of forgetfulness; no court of honor could hold him bound to declare himself her suitor.  The evening that he made up his mind to this he wrote two letters, very nearly alike; one was to Madame d’Avrigny, the other to Madame de Nailles, announcing that, having received orders to join the Embassy to which he was attached at Vienna, he was about to depart at once, with great regret that he should not be able to take leave of any one.  To Madame d’Avrigny he made apologies for having to give up his part in her theatricals; he entreated Madame de Nailles to