The name of the vile creature whose treachery had been one of the principal causes of Henrietta’s misfortunes did not strike her ear.

“How could my father ever be induced to leave his home?” she asked.

“He sold it, madam, ten days ago.”

“Great God!  My father must be ruined!”

The old man bowed his head.

“Yes!”

Thus were the sad presentiments realized which she had felt when first she had heard Count Ville-Handry speak of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Company.  But never, oh, never! would she have imagined so sudden a downfall.

“My father ruined!” she repeated, as if she were unable to realize the precise meaning of these words.

“And only a year ago he had more than a hundred thousand dollars a year.  Six millions swallowed up in twelve months!—­six millions!”

And as the enormous amount seemed to be out of all proportion to the shortness of time, she said,—­

“It cannot be.  You must be mistaken, sir; they have misled you.”

A smile of bitter irony passed over the old dealer’s lips.  He replied, as if much puzzled by Henrietta’s doubts,—­

“What, madam, you do not see yet?  Alas! what I tell you is but too true; and, if you want proofs”—­

He drew a newspaper from his pocket and handed it to Henrietta, pointing out to her on the first page an article marked with a red pencil.

“There!” he said.

It was one of those financial sheets which arise every now and then, and which profess to teach the art of becoming rich in a very short time, without running any risk.  This paper bore a title calculated to reassure its readers.  It was called “Prudence.”  Henrietta read aloud,—­

“We shall never tire repeating to our subscribers the words which form our motto and our heading, ’Prudence, prudence!  Do not trust new enterprises!’

“Out of a hundred enterprises which appear in the market, it may safely be said that sixty are nothing but the simplest kind of wells, into which the capital of foolhardy speculators is sunk almost instantly.  Out of the remaining forty, twenty-five may be looked upon as suspicious enterprises, partaking too much of gambling speculations.  Among the last fifteen even, a careful choice must be made before we find out the few that present safe guarantees.”

The young girl paused, not understanding a word of all this stuff.  But the old man said,—­

“That is only the honey of the preface, the sweet syrup intended to conceal the bitterness of the medicine that is to follow.  Go on, and you will understand.”

She continued to read,—­

“A recent event, we ought to say a recent disaster, has just confirmed our doctrines, and justifies but too clearly our admonition to be careful.

“A company which started into existence last year with amazing suddenness, which filled the whole world with its flaming advertisements, crowding the newspapers, and decorating the street-corners,—­a company which was most surely to enrich its stockholders, is already no longer able to pay the interest on its paid-up capital.