f you'll come home
with me after breakfast, I'll show them to you. We'll have a hearty
laugh over them!"

"Let us finish this first."

"Of course." And he resumed: "'If I had been alone. I should not have
hesitated. I was so wretched that death seemed a refuge to me. But
what was to become of my child? Should I kill him, and destroy myself
afterward? I thought of doing so, but I lacked the courage. And what
I implored you in pity to give me, was rightfully mine. I had only to
present myself at your house and demand it. Alas! I did not know that
then. I believed myself bound by a solemn oath, and you inspired me
with inexpressible terror. And still I could not see my child die of
starvation before my very eyes. So I abandoned myself to my fate, and
I have sunk so low that I have been obliged to separate from my son.
He must not know the shame to which he owes his livelihood. And he is
ignorant even of my existence.'"

M. Fortunat was as motionless as if he had been turned to stone. After
the information he had obtained respecting the count's past, and after
the story told him by Madame Vantrasson, he could scarcely doubt.
"This letter," he thought, "can only be from Mademoiselle Hermine de
Chalusse."

However, M. Casimir resumed his reading: "'If I apply to you again, if
from the depth of infamy into which I have fallen, I again call upon you
for help, it is because I am at the end of my resources--because, before
I die, I must see my son's future assured. It is not a fortune that I
ask for him, but sufficient to live upon, and I expect to receive it
from you.'"

Once more the valet paused in his perusal of the letter to remark:
"There it is again sufficient to live upon, and I expect to receive it
from you!--Excellent! Women are remarkable creatures, upon my word! But
listen to the rest! 'It is absolutely necessary that I should see you
as soon as possible. Oblige me, therefore, by calling to-morrow, October
15th, at the Hotel de Homburg, in the Rue du Helder. You will ask for
Madame Lucy Huntley, and they will conduct you to me. I shall expect you
from three o'clock to six. Come. I implore you, come. It is painful to
me to add that if I do not hear from you, I am resolved to demand and
OBTAIN--no matter what may be the consequences--the means which I have,
so far, asked of you on my bended knees and with clasped hands.'"

Having finished the letter, M. Casimir laid it on the table, and poured
out a glassful of