rigand of a son? Don't
give him a farthing. Make yourself easy, I'll answer for Philippe. I
should like to see him brought before the Court of Peers; it might
save his future. You are afraid he will be condemned; but I say, may it
please God his lawyer lets him be convicted. Go to Issoudun, secure the
property for your children. If you don't succeed, if your brother
has made a will in favor of that woman, and you can't make him
revoke it,--well then, at least get all the evidence you can of undue
influence, and I'll institute proceedings for you. But you are too
honest a woman to know how to get at the bottom facts of such a matter.
I'll go myself to Issoudun in the holidays,--if I can."

That "go myself" made Joseph tremble in his skin. Desroches winked at
him to let his mother go downstairs first, and then the lawyer detained
the young man for a single moment.

"Your brother is a great scoundrel; he is the cause of the discovery of
this conspiracy,--intentionally or not, I can't say, for the rascal
is so sly no one can find out the exact truth as to that. Fool or
traitor,--take your choice. He will be put under the surveillance of the
police, nothing more. You needn't be uneasy; no one knows this secret
but myself. Go to Issoudun with your mother. You have good sense; try to
save the property."

"Come, my poor mother, Desroches is right," said Joseph, rejoining
Agathe on the staircase. "I have sold my two pictures, let us start for
Berry; you have two weeks' leave of absence."

After writing to her godmother to announce their arrival, Agathe and
Joseph started the next evening for their trip to Issoudun, leaving
Philippe to his fate. The diligence rolled through the rue d'Enfer
toward the Orleans highroad. When Agathe saw the Luxembourg, to which
Philippe had been transferred, she could not refrain from saying,--

"If it were not for the Allies he would never be there!"

Many sons would have made an impatient gesture and smiled with pity; but
the artist, who was alone with his mother in the coupe, caught her in
his arms and pressed her to his heart, exclaiming:--

"Oh, mother! you are a mother just as Raphael was a painter. And you
will always be a fool of a mother!"

Madame Bridau's mind, diverted before long from her griefs by the
distractions of the journey, began to dwell on the purpose of it. She
re-read the letter of Madame Hochon, which had so stirred up the lawyer
Desroches. Struck with the words "con