ack cold blowing outside, from phantoms, from snares, from
miseries and terrors, from all the sinister things that a winter night
in Paris brings forth in the remoteness of its quiet suburbs.

Thus, drawn close together in a small room at the top of the lonely
house, in the warmth, the security of their comfortable home, the
Joyeuse household seems like a nest right at the top of a lofty
tree. The girls sew, read, chat a little. A leap of the lamp-flame,
a crackling of fire, is what you may hear, with from time to time an
exclamation from M. Joyeuse, a little removed from his small circle,
lost in the shadow where he hides his anxious brow and all the
extravagance of his imagination. Just now he is imagining that in
the distress into which he finds himself driven beyond possibility
of escape, in that absolute necessity of confessing everything to his
children, this evening, at latest to-morrow, an unhoped-for succour may
come to him. Hemerlingue, seized with remorse, sends to him, as to
all those who took part in the work connected with the Tunis loan, his
December gratuity. A tall footman brings it: "On behalf of M. le Baron."
The visionary says those words aloud. The pretty faces turn towards him;
the girls laugh, move their chairs, and the poor fellow awakes suddenly
to reality.

Oh, how angry he is with himself now for his delay in confessing all,
for that false security which he has maintained around him and which he
will have to destroy at a blow. What need had he, too, to criticise that
Tunis loan? At this moment he even reproaches himself for not having
accepted a place in the Territorial Bank. Had he the right to refuse?
Ah, the sorry head of a family, without strength to keep or to defend
the happiness of his own! And, glancing at the pretty group within
the circle of the lamp-shade, whose reposeful aspect forms so great a
contrast with his own internal agitation, he is seized by a remorse so
violent for the weakness of his soul that his secret rises to his lips,
is about to escape him in a burst of sobs, when the ring of a bell--no
chimera, that--gives them all a start and arrests him at the very moment
when he was about to speak.

Whoever could it be, coming at this hour? They had lived in retirement
since the mother's death and saw almost nobody. Andre Maranne, when
he came down to spend a few minutes with them, tapped like a familiar
friend. Profound silence in the drawing-room, long colloquy on the
lan