irmly
planted, to watch the son of his heart, the Comte d'Esgrignon, go out of
the courtyard between two gendarmes, with the commissary, the justice
of the peace, and the clerk of the court; and not until the figures had
disappeared, and the sound of footsteps had died away into silence, did
he recover his firmness and presence of mind.

"You will catch cold, sir," Brigitte remonstrated.

"The devil take you!" cried her exasperated master.

Never in the nine-and-twenty years that Brigitte had been in his service
had she heard such words from him! Her candle fell out of her hands, but
Chesnel neither heeded his housekeeper's alarm nor heard her exclaim. He
hurried off towards the Val-Noble.

"He is out of his mind," said she; "after all, it is no wonder. But
where is he off to? I cannot possibly go after him. What will become of
him? Suppose that he should drown himself?"

And Brigitte went to waken the head-clerk and send him to look along the
river bank; the river had a gloomy reputation just then, for there had
lately been two cases of suicide--one a young man full of promise, and
the other a girl, a victim of seduction. Chesnel went straight to the
Hotel du Croisier. There lay his only hope. The law requires that a
charge of forgery must be brought by a private individual. It was still
possible to withdraw if du Croisier chose to admit that there had been
a misapprehension; and Chesnel had hopes, even then, of buying the man
over.

M. and Mme. du Croisier had much more company than usual that evening.
Only a few persons were in the secret. M. du Ronceret, president of the
Tribunal; M. Sauvager, deputy Public Prosecutor; and M. du Coudrai, a
registrar of mortgages, who had lost his post by voting on the wrong
side, were the only persons who were supposed to know about it; but
Mesdames du Ronceret and du Coudrai had told the news, in strict
confidence, to one or two intimate friends, so that it had spread
half over the semi-noble, semi-bourgeois assembly at M. du Croisier's.
Everybody felt the gravity of the situation, but no one ventured to
speak of it openly; and, moreover, Mme. du Croisier's attachment to the
upper sphere was so well known, that people scarcely dared to mention
the disaster which had befallen the d'Esgrignons or to ask for
particulars. The persons most interested were waiting till good Mme. du
Croisier retired, for that lady always retreated to her room at the same
hour to perform her religio