He thought how foolish it really was of him to wait and wait for the other’s ruin.  How easily might not the adroit and lucky Alphonse come across many a brilliant business opening, and make plenty of money without a word of it reaching Charles’s ears.  Perhaps, after all, he was getting on well.  Perhaps it would end in people saying, “See, at last Monsieur Alphonse shows what he is fit for, now that he is quit of his dull and crabbed partner!”

Charles went slowly up the street with his head bent.  Many people jostled him, but he heeded not.  His life seemed to him so meaningless, as if he had lost all that he had ever possessed—­or had he himself cast it from him?  Just then some one ran against him with more than usual violence.  He looked up.  It was an acquaintance from the time when he and Alphonse had been in the Credit Lyonnais.

“Ah, good-day, Monsieur Charles!” cried he, “It is long since we met.  Odd, too, that I should meet you to-day.  I was just thinking of you this morning.”

“Why, may I ask?” said Charles, half absently.

“Well, you see, only to-day I saw up at the bank a paper—­a bill for thirty or forty thousand francs—­bearing both your name and that of Monsieur Alphonse.  It astonished me, for I thought that you two—­hm!—­had done with each other.”

“No, we have not quite done with each other yet,” said Charles slowly.

He struggled with all his might to keep his face calm, and asked, in as natural a tone as he could command, “When does the bill fall due?  I don’t quite recollect.”

“To-morrow or the day after, I think,” answered the other, who was a hard-worked business man, and was already in a hurry to be off.  “It was accepted by Monsieur Alphonse.”

“I know that,” said Charles; “but could you not manage to let me redeem the bill to-morrow?  It is a courtesy—­a favor I am anxious to do.”

“With pleasure.  Tell your messenger to ask for me personally at the bank to-morrow afternoon.  I will arrange it; nothing easier.  Excuse me; I’m in a hurry.  Good-bye!” and with that he ran on.

Next day Charles sat in his counting-house waiting for the messenger who had gone up to the bank to redeem Alphonse’s bill.

At last a clerk entered, laid a folded blue paper by his principal’s side, and went out again.

Not until the door was closed did Charles seize the draft, look swiftly round the room, and open it.  He stared for a second or two at his name, then lay back in his chair and drew a deep breath.  It was as he had expected—­the signature was a forgery.

He bent over it again.  For long he sat, gazing at his own name, and observing how badly it was counterfeited.

While his sharp eyes followed every line in the letters of his name, he scarcely thought.  His mind was so disturbed, and his feelings so strangely conflicting, that it was some time before he became conscious how much they betrayed—­these bungling strokes on the blue paper.