Du Tillet had heard many speculations as to the greater or less probability of his sister-in-law’s love for Nathan; but he was one of those who deemed the liaison incompatible with that existing between Raoul and Florine, or who denied it on other grounds. In his view, either the actress made the Countess impossible, or vice versa. But when, on his return that evening, he found his sister-in-law, whose agitation had been plainly written on her face at the opera, he surmised that Raoul had confided his plight to the Countess. This meant that the Countess loved him, and had come to beg from Marie-Eugénie the amount due to old Gigonnet. Mme. du Tillet, at a loss how to explain this apparently miraculous insight, had betrayed so much confusion, that du Tillet’s suspicion became a certainty. The banker was confident that he could now get hold of the clue to Nathan’s intrigues.

No one knew of the poor wretch who lay ill in a private hotel in the Rue du Mail, under the name of the attendant, François Quillet, to whom the Countess had promised five hundred francs as the reward for silence on the events of the night and morning. Quillet in consequence had taken the precaution of telling the portress that Nathan was ill from overwork. It was no surprise to du Tillet not to see Nathan, for it was only natural the journalist should keep in hiding from the bailiffs. When the detectives came to make inquiry, they were told that a lady had been there that morning and carried off the editor. Two days elapsed before they had discovered the number of the cab, questioned the driver, and identified and explored the house in which the poor insolvent was coming back to life. Thus Marie’s wary tactics had won for Nathan a respite of three days.

Each of the sisters passed an agitated night. Such a tragedy casts a lurid light, like the glow of its own charcoal, upon the whole substance of a life, throwing out its shoals and reefs rather than the heights which hitherto had struck the eye. Mme. du Tillet, overcome by the frightful spectacle of a young man dying in his editorial chair, and writing his last words with Roman stoicism, could think of nothing but how to help him, how to restore to life the being in whom her sister’s life was bound up. It is a law of the mind to look at effects before analyzing causes. Eugénie once more approved the idea, which had occurred to her, of applying to the Baronne Delphine de Nucingen, with whom she had a dining acquaintance, and felt that it promised well. With the generosity natural to those whose hearts have not been ground in the polished mill of society, Mme. du Tillet determined to take everything upon herself.

The Countess again, happy in having saved Nathan’s life, spent the night in scheming how to lay her hands on forty thousand francs. In such a crisis women are beyond praise. Under the impulse of feeling they light upon contrivances which would excite, if anything could, the admiration of thieves, brokers, usurers, those three more or less licensed classes of men who live by their wits. The Countess would sell her diamonds and wear false ones. Then she was for asking Vandenesse to give her the money for her sister, whom she had already used as a pretext; but she was too high-minded not to recoil from such degrading expedients, which occurred to her only to be rejected. To give Vandenesse’s money to Nathan! At the very thought she leaped up in bed, horrified at her own baseness. Wear false diamonds! her husband would find out sooner or later. She would go and beg the money from the Rothschilds, who had so much; from the Archbishop of Paris, whose duty it was to succor the poor. Then in her extremity she rushed from one religion to another with impartial prayers. She lamented being in opposition; in old days she could have borrowed from persons near to royalty. She thought of applying to her father. But the ex-judge had a horror of any breach of the law; his children had learned from experience how little sympathy he had with love troubles; he refused to hear of them, he had become a misanthrope, he could not away with intrigue of any description. As to the Comtesse de Granville, she had gone to live in retirement on one of her estates in Normandy, and, icy to the last, was ending her days, pinching and praying, between priests and moneybags. Even were there time for Marie to reach Bayeax, would her mother give her so large a sum without knowing what it was wanted for? Imaginary debts? Yes, possibly her favorite child might move her to compassion. Well, then, as a last resource, to Normandy the Countess would go. The Comte de Granville would not refuse to give her a pretext by sending false news of his wife’s serious illness.

The tragedy which had given her such a shock in the morning, the care she had lavished on Nathan, the hours passed by his bedside, the broken tale, the agony of a great mind, the career of genius cut short by a vulgar and ignoble detail, all rushed upon her memory as so many spurs to love. Once more she lived through every heartthrob, and felt her love stronger in the hour of Nathan’s abasement than in that of his success. Would she have kissed that forehead crowned with triumph? Her heart answered: No. The parting words Nathan had spoken to her in Lady Dudley’s boudoir touched her unspeakably by their noble dignity. Was ever farewell more saintly? What could be more heroic than to abandon happiness because it would have made her misery? The Countess had longed for sensations in her life, truly she had a wealth of them now, fearful, agonizing, and yet dear to her. Her life seemed fuller in pain than it had ever been in pleasure. With what ecstasy she repeated to herself, “I have saved him already, and I will save him again!” She heard his cry, “Only the miserable know the power of love!” when he had felt his Marie’s lips upon his forehead.

“Are you ill?” asked her husband, coming into her room to fetch her for lunch.

“I cannot get over the tragedy which is being enacted at my sister’s,” she said, truthfully enough.

“She has fallen into bad hands; it’s a disgrace to the family to have a du Tillet in it, a worthless fellow like that. If your sister got into any trouble, she would find scant pity with him.”

“What woman could endure pity?” said the Countess, with an involuntary shudder. “Your ruthless harshness is the truest homage.”

“There speaks your noble heart!” said Félix, kissing his wife’s hand, quite touched by her fine scorn. “A woman who feels like that does not need guarding.”

“Guarding?” she answered; “that again is another disgrace which recoils on you.”

Félix smiled, but Marie blushed. When a woman has committed a secret fault, she cloaks herself in an exaggerated womanly pride, nor can we blame the fraud, which points to a reserve of dignity or even high-mindedness.

Marie wrote a line to Nathan, under the name of M. Quillet, to tell him that all was going well, and sent it by a commissionaire to the Mail Hotel. At the Opera in the evening the Countess reaped the benefit of her falsehoods, her husband finding it quite natural that she should leave her box to go and see her sister. Félix waited to give her his arm till du Tillet had left his wife alone. What were not Marie’s feelings as she crossed the passage, entered her sister’s box, and took her seat there, facing with calm and serene countenance the world of fashion, amazed to see the sisters together!

“Tell me,” she said.

The reply was written on Marie-Eugénie’s face, the radiance of which many people ascribed to gratified vanity.

“Yes, he will be saved, darling, but for three months only, during which time we will put our heads together and find some more substantial help. Mme. de Nucingen will take four bills, each for ten thousand francs, signed by anyone you like, so as not to compromise you. She has explained to me how they are to be made out; I don’t understand in the least, but M. Nathan will get them ready for you. Only it occurred to me that perhaps our old master, Schmucke, might be useful to us now; he would sign them. If, in addition to these four securities, you write a letter guaranteeing their payment to Mme. de Nucingen, she will hand you the money tomorrow. Do the whole thing yourself; don’t trust to anybody. Schmucke, you see, would, I think, make no difficulty if you asked him. To disarm suspicion, I said that you wanted to do a kindness to our old music-master, a German who was in trouble. In this way I was able to beg for the strictest secrecy.”

“You angel of cleverness! If only the Baronne de Nucingen does not talk till after she has given the money!” said the Countess, raising her eyes as though in prayer, regardless of her surroundings.

“Schmucke lives in the little Rue de Nevers, on the Quai Conti; don’t forget, and go yourself.”

“Thanks,” said the Countess, pressing her sister’s hand. “Ah! I would give ten years of my life⁠—”

“From your old age⁠—”

“To put an end to all these horrors,” said the Countess, with a smile at the interruption.

The crowd at this moment, spying the two sisters through their opera-glasses, might suppose them to be talking of trivialities, as they heard the ring of their frank laughter. But any one of those idlers, who frequent the Opera rather to study dress and faces than to enjoy themselves, would be able to detect the secret of the Countess in the wave of feeling which suddenly blotted all cheerfulness out of their fair faces. Raoul, who did not fear the bailiffs at night, appeared, pale and ashy, with anxious eye and gloomy brow, on the step of the staircase where he regularly took his stand. He looked for the Countess in her box and, finding it empty, buried his face in his hands, leaning his elbows on the balustrade.

“Can she be here!” he thought.

“Look up, unhappy hero,” whispered Mme. du Tillet.

As for Marie, at all risks she fixed on him that steady magnetic gaze, in which the will flashes from the eye, as rays of light from the sun. Such a look, mesmerizers say, penetrates to the person on whom it is directed, and certainly Raoul seemed as though struck by a magic wand. Raising his head, his eyes met those of the sisters. With that charming feminine readiness which is never at fault, Mme. de Vandenesse seized a cross, sparkling on her neck, and directed his attention to it by a swift smile, full of meaning. The brilliance of the gem radiated even upon Raoul’s forehead, and he replied with a look of joy; he had understood.

“Is it nothing, then, Eugénie,” said the Countess, “thus to restore life to the dead?”

“You have a chance yet with the Royal Humane Society,” replied Eugénie, with a smile.

“How wretched and depressed he looked when he came, and how happy he will go away!”

At this moment du Tillet, coming up to Raoul with every mark of friendliness, pressed his hand, and said:

“Well, old fellow, how are you?”

“As well as a man is likely to be who has just got the best possible news of the election. I shall be successful,” replied Raoul, radiant.

“Delighted,” said du Tillet. “We shall want money for the paper.”

“The money will be found,” said Raoul.

“The devil is with these women!” exclaimed du Tillet, still unconvinced by the words of Raoul, whom he had nicknamed Charnathan.

“What are you talking about?” said Raoul.

“My sister-in-law is there with my wife, and they are hatching something together. You seem in high favor with the Countess; she is bowing to you right across the house.”

“Look,” said Mme. du Tillet to her sister, “they told us wrong. See how my husband fawns on M. Nathan, and it is he who they declared was trying to get him put in prison!”

“And men call us slanderers!” cried the Countess. “I will give him a warning.”

She rose, took the arm of Vandenesse, who was waiting in the passage, and returned jubilant to her box; by and by she left the Opera, ordered her carriage for the next morning before eight o’clock, and found herself at half-past eight on the Quai Conti, having called at the Rue du Mail on her way.

The carriage could not enter the narrow Rue de Nevers; but, as Schmucke’s house stood at the corner of the Quay, the Countess was not obliged to walk to it through the mud. She almost leapt from the step of the carriage on to the dirty and dilapidated entrance of the grimy old house, which was held together by iron clamps, like a poor man’s crockery, and overhung the street in quite an alarming fashion.

The old organist lived on the fourth floor, and rejoiced in a beautiful view of the Seine, from the Pont Neuf to the rising ground of Chaillot. The simple fellow was so taken aback when the footman announced his former pupil, that, before he could recover himself, she was in the room. Never could the Countess have imagined or guessed at an existence such as that suddenly laid bare to her, though she had long known Schmucke’s scorn for appearances and his indifference to worldly things. Who could have believed in so neglected a life, in carelessness carried to such a pitch? Schmucke was a musical Diogenes; he felt no shame for the hugger-mugger in which he lived; indeed, custom had made him insensible to it.

The constant use of a fat, friendly, German pipe had spread over the ceiling and the flimsy wallpaper⁠—well rubbed by the cat⁠—a faint yellow tint, which gave a pervading impression of the golden harvests of Ceres. The cat, whose long ruffled silky coat made a garment such as a portress might have envied, did the honors of the house, sedately whiskered, and entirely at her ease. From the top of a first-rate Vienna piano, where she lay couched in state, she cast on the Countess as she entered the gracious yet chilly glance with which any woman, astonished at her beauty, might have greeted her. She did not stir, except to wave the two silvery threads of her upright moustache and to fix upon Schmucke two golden eyes. The piano, which had known better days, and was cased in a good wood, painted black and gold, was dirty, discolored, chipped, and its keys were worn like the teeth of an old horse and mellowed by the deeper tints which fell from the pipe. Little piles of ashes on the ledge proclaimed that the night before Schmucke had bestridden the old instrument to some witches’ rendezvous. The brick floor, strewn with dried mud, torn paper, pipe ashes, and odds and ends that defy description, suggested the boards of a lodging-house floor, when they have not been swept for a week and heaps of litter, a cross between the contents of the ash-pit and the ragbag, await the servants’ brooms. A more practised eye than that of the Countess might have read indications of Schmucke’s way of living in the chestnut parings, scraps of apple peel, and shells of Easter eggs, which covered broken fragments of plates, all messed with sauerkraut. This German detritus formed a carpet of dusty filth which grated under the feet and lost itself in a mass of cinders, dropping with slow dignity from a painted stone fireplace, where a lump of coal lorded it over two half-burnt logs that seemed to waste away before it. On the mantelpiece was a pier-glass with figures dancing a saraband round it; on one side the glorious pipe hung on a nail, on the other stood a china pot in which the Professor kept his tobacco. Two armchairs, casually picked up, together with a thin, flattened couch, a worm-eaten chest of drawers with the marble top gone, and a maimed table, on which lay the remains of a frugal breakfast, made up the furniture, unpretending as that of a Mohican wigwam. A shaving-glass hanging from the catch of a curtainless window, and surmounted by a rag, striped by razor scrapings, were evidence of the sole sacrifices paid by Schmucke to the graces and to society.

The cat, petted as a feeble and dependent being, was the best off. It rejoiced in an old armchair cushion, beside which stood a white china cup and dish. But what no pen can describe is the state to which Schmucke, the cat, and the pipe⁠—trinity of living beings⁠—had reduced the furniture. The pipe had scorched the table in places. The cat and Schmucke’s head had greased the green Utrecht velvet of the two armchairs till it was worn quite smooth. But for the cat’s magnificent tail, which did a part of the cleaning, the dust would have lain forever undisturbed on the uncovered parts of the chest of drawers and piano. In a corner lay the army of slippers, to which only a Homeric catalogue could do justice. The tops of the chest of drawers and of the piano were blocked with broken-backed, loose-paged music-books, the boards showing all the pages peeping through, with corners white and dog-eared. Along the walls the addresses of pupils were glued with little wafers. The wafers without paper showed the number of obsolete addresses. On the wallpaper chalk additions might be read. The chest of drawers was adorned with last night’s tankards, which stood out quite fresh and bright in the midst of all this stuffiness and decay. Hygiene was represented by a water-jug crowned with a towel and a bit of common soap, white marbled with blue, which left its damp-mark here and there on the red wood. Two hats, equally ancient, hung on pegs, from which also was suspended the familiar blue ulster with its three capes, without which the Countess would hardly have known Schmucke. Beneath the window stood three pots of flowers, German flowers presumably, and close by a holly walking-stick.

Though the Countess was disagreeably affected both in sight and smell, yet Schmucke’s eyes and smile transformed the sordid scene with heavenly rays, that gave a glory to the dingy tones and animation to the chaos. The soul of this man, who seemed to belong to another world and revealed so many of its mysteries, radiated light like a sun. His frank and hearty laugh at the sight of one of his Saint Cecilias diffused the brightness of youth, mirth, and innocence. He poured out treasures of that which mankind holds dearest, and made a cloak of them to veil his poverty. The most purse-proud upstart would perhaps have blushed to think twice of the surroundings within which moved this noble apostle of the religion of music.

“Eh, py vot tchance came you here, tear Montame la Gondesse?” he said. “Must I den zing de zong ov Zimeon at mein asche?”

This idea started him on another peal of ringing laughter.

“Is it dat I haf a conqvest made?” he went on, with a look of cunning.

Then, laughing like a child again:

“You com for de musike, not for a boor man, I know,” he said sadly; “but come for vat you vill, you know dat all is here for you, pody, zoul, ant coots!”

He took the hand of the Countess, kissed it, and dropped a tear, for with this good man every day was the morrow of a kindness received. His joy had for a moment deprived him of memory, only to bring it back in greater force. He seized on the chalk, leaped on the armchair in front of the piano, and then, with the alacrity of a young man, wrote on the wall in large letters, “February 17th, 1835.” This movement, so pretty and artless, came with such an outburst of gratitude that the Countess was quite moved.

“My sister is coming too,” she said.

“De oder alzo! Ven? Ven? May it pe bevor I tie!” he replied.

“She will come to thank you for a great favor which I am here now to ask from you on her behalf.”

“Qvick; qvick! qvick! qvick!” cried Schmucke, “vot is dis dat I mosd to? Mosd I to de teufel go?”

“I only want you to write, I promise to pay the sum of ten thousand francs on each of these papers,” she said, drawing from her muff the four bills, which Nathan had prepared in accordance with the formula prescribed.

“Ach! dat vill pe soon tone,” replied the German with a lamblike docility. “Only, I know not vere are mein bens and baber.⁠—Get you away, Meinherr Mirr,” he cried to the cat, who stared at him frigidly. “Dis is mein gat,” he said, pointing it out to the Countess. “Dis is de boor peast vich lifs mit de boor Schmucke. He is peautivul, not zo?”

The Countess agreed.

“You vould vish him?”

“What an idea! Take away your friend!”

The cat, who was hiding the ink-bottle, divined what Schmucke wanted and jumped on to the bed.

“He is naughty ass ein monkey!” he went on, pointing to it on the bed. “I name him Mirr, for do glorivy our creat Hoffmann at Berlin, dat I haf mosh known.”

The good man signed with the innocence of a child doing its mother’s bidding, utterly ignorant what it is about, but sure that all will be right. He was far more taken up with presenting the cat to the Countess than with the papers, which, by the laws relating to foreigners, might have deprived him forever of liberty.

“You make me zure dat dese leetl stambed babers.”

“Don’t have the least uneasiness,” said the Countess.

“I haf not oneasiness,” he replied hastily. “I ask if dese leetl stambed babers vill plees do Montame ti Dilet?”

“Oh yes,” she said; “you will be helping her as a father might.”

“I am fer habby do pe coot do her for zomting. Com, do mein music!” he said, leaving the papers on the table and springing to the piano.

In a moment the hands of this unworldly being were flying over the well-worn keys, in a moment his glance pierced the roof to heaven, in a moment the sweetest of songs blossomed in the air and penetrated the soul. But only while the ink was drying could this simple-minded interpreter of heavenly things be allowed to draw forth eloquence from wood and string, like Raphael’s St. Cecilia playing to the listening hosts of heaven. The Countess then slipped the bills into her muff again, and recalled the radiant master from the ethereal spheres in which he soared by a touch on the shoulder.

“My good Schmucke,” she cried.

“Zo zoon,” he exclaimed, with a submissiveness painful to see. “Vy den are you kom?”

He did not complain, he stood like a faithful dog, waiting for a word from the Countess.

“My good Schmucke,” she again began, “this is a question of life and death, minutes now may be the price of blood and tears.”

“Efer de zame!” he said. “Go den! try de tears ov oders! Know dat de poor Schmucke counts your fisit for more dan your pounty.”

“We shall meet again,” she said. “You must come and play to me and dine with me every Sunday, or else we shall quarrel. I shall expect you next Sunday.”

“Truly?”

“Indeed, I hope you will come; and my sister, I am sure, will fix a day for you also.”

“Mein habbiness vill be den gomplete,” he said, “vor I tid not zee you put at de Champes-Hailysées, ven you passed in de carrisch, fery rarely.”

The thought of this dried the tears which had gathered in the old man’s eyes, and he offered his arm to his fair pupil, who could feel the wild beats of his heart.

“You thought of us then sometimes,” she said.

“Efery time ven I mein pret eat!” he replied. “Virst ass mein pountivul laties, ant den ass de two virst young girls vurty of luf dat I haf zeen.”

The Countess dared say no more! There was a marvelous and respectful solemnity in these words, as though they formed part of some religious service, breathing fidelity. That smoky room, that den of refuse, became a temple for two goddesses. Devotion there waxed stronger, all unknown to its objects.

“Here, then, we are loved, truly loved,” she thought.

The Countess shared the emotion with which old Schmucke saw her get into her carriage, as she blew from the ends of her fingers one of those airy kisses, which are a woman’s distant greeting. At this sight, Schmucke stood transfixed long after the carriage had disappeared.

A few minutes later, the Countess entered the courtyard of Mme. de Nucingen’s house. The Baroness was not yet up; but, in order not to keep a lady of position waiting, she flung round her a shawl and dressing gown.

“I come on the business of others, and promptitude is then a virtue,” said the Countess. “This must be my excuse for disturbing you so early.”

“Not at all! I am only too happy,” said the banker’s wife, taking the four papers and the guarantee of the Countess.

She rang for her maid.

“Theresa, tell the cashier to bring me up himself at once forty thousand francs.”

Then she sealed the letter of Mme. de Vandenesse, and locked it into a secret drawer of her table.

“What a pretty room you have!” said the Countess.

“M. de Nucingen is going to deprive me of it; he is getting a new house built.”

“You will no doubt give this one to your daughter. I hear that she is engaged to M. de Rastignac.”

The cashier appeared as Mme. de Nucingen was on the point of replying. She took the notes and handed him the four bills of exchange.

“That balances,” said the Baroness to the cashier.

“Egzebd for de disgound,” said the cashier. “Dis Schmucke iss ein musician vrom Ansbach,” he added, with a glance at the signature, which sent a shiver through the Countess.

“Do you suppose I am transacting business?” said Mme. de Nucingen, with a haughty glance of rebuke at the cashier. “This is my affair.”

In vain did the cashier cast sly glances now at the Countess, now at the Baroness; not a line of their faces moved.

“You can leave us now.⁠—Be so good as remain a minute or two, so that you may not seem to have anything to do with this matter,” said the Baroness to Mme. de Vandenesse.

“I must beg of you to add to your other kind services that of keeping my secret,” said the Countess.

“In a matter of charity that is of course,” replied the Baroness, with a smile. “I shall have your carriage sent to the end of the garden; it will start without you; then we shall cross the garden together, no one will see you leave this. The whole thing will remain a mystery.”

“You must have known suffering to have learned so much thought for others,” said the Countess.

“I don’t know about thoughtfulness, but I have suffered a great deal,” said the Baroness; “you, I trust, have paid less dearly for yours.”

The orders given, the Baroness took her fur shoes and cloak and led the Countess to the side door of the garden.

When a man is plotting against anyone, as du Tillet did against Nathan, he makes no confidant. Nucingen had some notion of what was going on, but his wife remained entirely outside this Machiavellian scheming. She knew, however, that Raoul was in difficulties, and was not deceived therefore by the sisters; she suspected shrewdly into whose hands the money would pass, and it gave her real pleasure to help the Countess. Entanglements of the kind always roused her deepest sympathy.

Rastignac, who was playing the detective on the intrigues of the two bankers, came to lunch with Mme. de Nucingen. Delphine and Rastignac had no secrets from each other, and she told him of her interview with the Countess. Rastignac, unable to imagine how the Baroness had become mixed up in this affair, which in his eyes was merely incidental, one weapon amongst many, explained to her that she had this morning in all probability demolished the electoral hopes of du Tillet and rendered abortive the foul play and sacrifices of a whole year. He then went on to enlighten her as to the whole position, urging her to keep silence about her own mistake.

“If only,” she said, “the cashier does not speak of it to Nucingen.”

Du Tillet was at lunch when, a few minutes after twelve, M. Gigonnet was announced.

“Show him in,” said the hanker, regardless of his wife’s presence. “Well, old Shylock, is our man under lock and key?”

“No.”

“No! Didn’t I tell you Rue du Mail, at the hotel?”

“He has paid,” said Gigonnet, drawing from his pocketbook forty banknotes.

A look of despair passed over du Tillet’s face.

“You should never look askance at good money,” said the impassive crony of du Tillet; “it’s unlucky.”

“Where did you get this money, madame?” said the banker, with a scowl at his wife, which made her scarlet to the roots of her hair.

“I have no idea what you mean,” she said.

“I shall get to the bottom of this,” he replied, starting up in a fury. “You have upset my most cherished plans.”

“You will upset your lunch,” said Gigonnet, laying hold of the tablecloth, which had caught in the skirts of du Tillet’a dressing-gown.

Mme. du Tillet rose with frigid dignity, for his words had terrified her. She rang, and a footman came.

“My horses,” she said. “And send Virginie; I wish to dress.”

“Where are you going?” said du Tillet.

“Men who have any manners do not question their wives. You profess to be a gentleman.”

“You have not been yourself for the last two days, since your flippant sister has twice been to see you.”

“You ordered me to be flippant,” she said. “I am practising on you.”

Gigonnet, who took no interest in family broils, saluted Mme. du Tillet and went out.

Du Tillet looked fixedly at his wife, whose eyes met his without wavering.

“What is the meaning of this?” he said.

“It means that I am no longer a child to be cowed by you,” she replied. “I am, and shall remain all my life, a faithful, attentive wife to you; you may be master if you like, but tyrant, no.”

Du Tillet left her, and Marie-Eugénie retired to her room, quite unnerved by such an effort.

“But for my sister’s danger,” she said to herself, “I should never have ventured to beard him thus; as the proverb says, ‘It’s an ill wind that blows no good.’ ”

During the night Mme. du Tillet again passed in review her sister’s confidences. Raoul’s safety being assured, her reason was no longer overpowered by the thought of this imminent danger. She recalled the alarming energy with which the Countess had spoken of flying with Nathan, in order to console him in his calamity if she could not avert it. She foresaw how this man, in the violence of his gratitude and love, might persuade her sister to do what to the well-balanced Eugénie seemed an act of madness. There had been instances lately in the best society of such elopements, which pay the price of a doubtful pleasure in remorse and the social discredit arising out of a false position, and Eugénie recalled to mind their disastrous results. Du Tillet’s words had put the last touch to her panic; she dreaded discovery; she saw the signature of the Comtesse de Vandenesse in the archives of the Nucingen firm and she resolved to implore her sister to confess everything to Félix.

Mme. du Tillet did not find the Countess next morning; but Félix was at home. A voice within called on Eugénie to save her sister. Tomorrow even might be too late. It was a heavy responsibility, but she decided to tell everything to the Count. Surely he would be lenient, since his honor was still safe and the Countess was not so much depraved as misguided. Eugénie hesitated to commit what seemed like an act of cowardice and treachery by divulging secrets which society, at one in this, universally respects. But then came the thought of her sister’s future, the dread of seeing her some day deserted, ruined by Nathan, poor, ill, unhappy, despairing; she hesitated no longer, and asked to see the Count. Félix, greatly surprised by this visit, had a long conversation with his sister-in-law, in the course of which he showed such calm and self-mastery that Eugénie trembled at the desperate steps he might be revolving.

“Don’t be troubled,” said Vandenesse; “I shall act so that the day will come when your sister will bless you. However great your repugnance in keeping from her the fact that you have spoken to me, I must ask you to give me a few days’ grace. I require this in order to see my way through certain mysteries, of which you know nothing, and above all to take my measures with prudence. Possibly I may find out everything at once! I am the only one to blame, dear sister. All lovers play their own game, but all women are not fortunate enough to see life as it really is.”