had he seen her again, he might have had a relapse of his disease; but the impetus of flight had carried Sidonie away so swiftly and so far that her return was impossible.  At all events, it was a relief for him to be able to live without lying; and the new life he was leading, a life of hard work and self-denial, with the goal of success in the distance, was not distasteful to him.  Luckily; for the courage and determination of both partners were none too much to put the house on its feet once more.

The poor house of Fromont had sprung leaks on all sides.  So Pere Planus still had wretched nights, haunted by the nightmare of notes maturing and the ominous vision of the little blue man.  But, by strict economy, they always succeeded in paying.

Soon four Risler Presses were definitively set up and used in the work of the factory.  People began to take a deep interest in them and in the wall-paper trade.  Lyons, Caen, Rixbeim, the great centres of the industry, were much disturbed concerning that marvellous “rotary and dodecagonal” machine.  One fine day the Prochassons appeared, and offered three hundred thousand francs simply for an interest in the patent rights.

“What shall we do?” Fromont Jeune asked Risler Aine.

The latter shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

“Decide for yourself.  It doesn’t concern me.  I am only an employe.”

The words, spoken coldly, without anger, fell heavily upon Fromont’s bewildered joy, and reminded him of the gravity of a situation which he was always on the point of forgetting.

But when he was alone with his dear Madame “Chorche,” Risler advised her not to accept the Prochassons’ offer.

“Wait,—­don’t be in a hurry.  Later you will have a better offer.”

He spoke only of them in that affair in which his own share was so glorious.  She felt that he was preparing to cut himself adrift from their future.

Meanwhile orders came pouring in and accumulated on their hands.  The quality of the paper, the reduced price because of the improved methods of manufacture, made competition impossible.  There was no doubt that a colossal fortune was in store for the house of Fromont.  The factory had resumed its former flourishing aspect and its loud, business-like hum.  Intensely alive were all the great buildings and the hundreds of workmen who filled them.  Pere Planus never raised his nose from his desk; one could see him from the little garden, leaning over his great ledgers, jotting down in magnificently molded figures the profits of the Risler press.

Risler still worked as before, without change or rest.  The return of prosperity brought no alteration in his secluded habits, and from the highest window on the topmost floor of the house he listened to the ceaseless roar of his machines.  He was no less gloomy, no less silent.  One day, however, it became known at the factory that the press, a specimen of which had been sent to the great Exposition at Manchester, had received the gold medal, whereby its success was definitely established.  Madame Georges called Risler into the garden at the luncheon hour, wishing to be the first to tell him the good news.