I will not allow excitement or any mistake of management
to carry off my patient and your daughter. If you positively insist on
seeing her, I shall call a consultation of three physicians, so as to
relieve myself of responsibility, for the patient may die of it."

The old man, worn out with fatigue, dropped on a chair; but he rose
immediately, saying:--

"Forgive me, monsieur. I have spent the night waiting for you in
dreadful distress of mind. You cannot know to what degree I love my
daughter; I have nursed her for fifteen years hovering between life and
death, and this week of waiting is torture to me."

The baron left the room staggering like a drunken man. The doctor
followed and supported him by the arm until he saw him safely down the
staircase.

An hour later Auguste de Mergi entered the doctor's room. On questioning
the porter at the hospital the unhappy lad heard that his grandfather
had been refused an entrance and had gone away to find Monsieur
Halpersohn, who could probably give information about him. As Auguste
entered the doctor's study Halpersohn was breakfasting on a cup of
chocolate and a glass of water. He did not disturb himself at the young
man's entrance, but went on sopping his bread in the chocolate; for he
never ate anything for breakfast but a small roll cut into four strips
with careful precision.

"Well, young man," he said, glancing at Vanda's son, "so you have come,
too, to find out about your mother?"

"Yes, monsieur;" replied Auguste de Mergi.

Auguste was standing near the table on which lay several bank-notes
among a pile of gold louis. Under the circumstances in which the unhappy
boy was placed the temptation was stronger than his principles, solid
as they were. He saw a means of saving his grandfather and the fruits
of almost a lifetime of toil. He yielded. The fascination was rapid
as thought; and it was justified to the child's mind by the idea
of self-devotion. "I destroy myself, but I save my mother and my
grandfather," he thought. Under the strain put upon his reason by this
criminal temptation he acquired, like madmen, a singular and momentary
dexterity.

Halpersohn, an experienced observer, had divined, retrospectively, the
life of the old man and that of the lad and of the mother. He felt or
perceived the truth; the Baronne de Mergi's remarks had helped to unveil
it to him; and the result was a feeling of benevolent pity for his
new clients. As for respect or admirat