Frantz was familiar with all these forms of misery; but never had they seemed to him so depressing, so harrowing as on that evening.

When the last man was paid, Sigismond came out of his office.  The two friends recognized each other and embraced; and in the silence of the factory, at rest for twenty-four hours and deathly still in all its empty buildings, the cashier explained to Frantz the state of affairs.  He described Sidonie’s conduct, her mad extravagance, the total wreck of the family honor.  The Rislers had bought a country house at Asnieres, formerly the property of an actress, and had set up a sumptuous establishment there.  They had horses and carriages, and led a luxurious, gay life.  The thing that especially disturbed honest Sigismond was the self restraint of Fromont jeune.  For some time he had drawn almost no money from the strong-box, and yet Sidonie was spending more than ever.

“I haf no gonfidence!” said the unhappy cashier, shaking his head, “I haf no gonfidence!”

Lowering his voice he added: 

“But your brother, my little Frantz, your brother?  Who can explain his actions?  He goes about through it all with his eyes in the air, his hands in his pockets, his mind on his famous invention, which unfortunately doesn’t move fast.  Look here! do you want me to give you my opinion?—­He’s either a knave or a fool.”

They were walking up and down the little garden as they talked, stopping for a moment, then resuming their walk.  Frantz felt as if he were living in a horrible dream.  The rapid journey, the sudden change of scene and climate, the ceaseless flow of Sigismond’s words, the new idea that he had to form of Risler and Sidonie—­the same Sidonie he had loved so dearly—­all these things bewildered him and almost drove him mad.

It was late.  Night was falling.  Sigismond proposed to him to go to Montrouge for the night; he declined on the plea of fatigue, and when he was left alone in the Marais, at that dismal and uncertain hour when the daylight has faded and the gas is still unlighted, he walked instinctively toward his old quarters on the Rue de Braque.

At the hall door hung a placard:  Bachelor’s Chamber to let.

It was the same room in which he had lived so long with his brother.  He recognized the map fastened to the wall by four pins, the window on the landing, and the Delobelles’ little sign:  ’Birds and Insects for Ornament.’

Their door was ajar; he had only to push it a little in order to enter the room.

Certainly there was not in all Paris a surer refuge for him, a spot better fitted to welcome and console his perturbed spirit, than that hard-working familiar fireside.  In his present agitation and perplexity it was like the harbor with its smooth, deep water, the sunny, peaceful quay, where the women work while awaiting their husbands and fathers, though the wind howls and the sea rages.  More than all else, although he did not realize that it was so, it was a network of steadfast affection, that miraculous love-kindness which makes another’s love precious to us even when we do not love that other.