“It is all you can do.”

“Yes, it is what prudence would advise me to do.  But can I do so in honor?”

“Oh, honor, honor!”

“Would it not be wrong in me to abandon the poor old man to the mercy of Miss Brandon and her accomplices?”

“You will never be able to rescue him, my dear fellow.”

“I ought at least to try.  You thought so yesterday, and even this morning, not two hours ago.”

Maxime could scarcely hide his impatience.

“I did not know then what I know now,” he said.

Daniel had risen, and was walking up and down the small room, replying to his own objections, rather than to those raised by Brevan.

“If I were alone master,” he said, “I might, perhaps, agree to a capitulation.  But could Henrietta accept it?  Never, never!  Her father knows her well.  She is as weak as a child; but at the proper moment she can develop a masculine energy and an iron will.”

“Why should you tell her at all who Miss Brandon is?”

“I have pledged my word of honor to tell her every thing.”

Brevan again shrugged his shoulders, and there was no mistaking what he meant by that gesture.  He might just as well have said aloud, “Can one conceive such stupidity?”

“Then you had better give up your Henrietta, my poor fellow,” he said.

But Daniel’s despair had been overcome.  He ground his teeth with anger, and said,—­

“Not yet, my friend, not yet!  An honest man who defends his honor and his life is pretty strong.  I have no experience, that is true; but I have you, Maxime; and I know I can always count upon you.”

Daniel did not seem to have noticed that M. de Brevan, at first all fire and energy, had rapidly cooled off, like a man, who, having ventured too far, thinks he has made a mistake, and tries to retrace his steps.

“Certainly you may count upon me,” he replied; “but what can be done?”

“Well, what you said yourself.  I shall call upon Miss Brandon, and watch her.  I shall dissemble, and gain time.  If necessary, I shall employ detectives, and find out her antecedents.  I shall try to interest some high personage in my behalf,—­my minister, for instance, who is very kind to me.  Besides, I have an idea.”

“Ah!”

“That unlucky cashier, whose story you told me, and who, you think, is not dead—­if we could find him.  How did you call him?  Oh, Malgat!  An advertisement inserted in all the leading newspapers of Europe would, no doubt, reach him; and the hope of seeing himself avenged”—­

M. de Brevan’s cheeks began to redden perceptibly.  He broke out with strange vehemence,—­

“What nonsense!”

Then he added, more collectedly,—­

“You forget that Malgat has been sentenced to I know not how many years’ penal servitude, and that he will see in your advertisement a trick of the police; so that he will only conceal himself more carefully than ever.”