Glady extended it toward him.  “I thank you for having applied to me; it is a proof of confidence that touches me.”  He pressed the hand that he had taken with some warmth.  “I see that you have divined the sentiments of esteem with which you have inspired me.”

Saniel drew a long breath.

“Unfortunately,” continued Glady, “I cannot do what you desire without deviating from my usual line of conduct.  When I started out in life I lent to all those who appealed to me, and when I did not lose my friends I lost my money.  I then took an oath to refuse every one.  It is an oath that I cannot break.  What would my old friends say if they learned that I did for a young man what I have refused to do for them?”

“Who would know it?”

“My conscience.”

They had reached the Quai Voltaire, where fiacres were stationed.

“At last here are some cabs,” Glady said.  “Pardon me for leaving you, but I am in a hurry.”

CHAPTER III

A LAST RESORT

Gady entered the cab so quickly that Saniel remained staring at the sidewalk, slightly dazed.  It was only when the door closed that he understood.

“His conscience!” he murmured.  “Behold them!  Tartufes!”

After a moment of hesitation, he continued his way and reached the bridge of Saints-Peres, but he walked with doubtful steps, like a man who does not know where he is going.  Presently he stopped, and, leaning his arms on the parapet, watched the sombre, rapidly flowing Seine, its small waves fringed with white foam.  The rain had ceased, but the wind blew in squalls, roughening the surface of the river and making the red and green lights of the omnibus boats sway in the darkness.  The passers-by came and went, and more than one examined him from the corner of the eye, wondering what this tall man was doing there, and if he intended to throw himself into the water.

And why not?  What better could he do?

And this was what Saniel said to himself while watching the flowing water.  One plunge, and he would end the fierce battle in which he had so madly engaged for four years, and which would in the end drive him mad.

It was not the first time that this idea of ending everything had tempted him, and he only warded it off by constantly inventing combinations which it seemed to him at the moment might save him.  Why yield to such a temptation before trying everything?  And this was how he happened to appeal to Glady.  But he knew him, and knew that his avarice, about which every one joked, had a certain reason for its existence.  However, he said to himself that if the landed proprietor obstinately refused a friendly loan, which would only pay the debts of youth, the poet would willingly fill the role of Providence and save from shipwreck, without risking anything, a man with a future, who, later, would pay him back.  It was with this hope that he risked a refusal.  The landed proprietor replied; the poet was silent.  And now there was nothing to expect from any one.  Glady was his last resort.