for "Matame la vicomtesse." He was shown in, and, after a great
many ceremonious bows, pulled out a dirty pocketbook, saying:

"I have a leetle paper for you," and then unfolded, and held out a
greasy scrap of paper.

Jeanne read it over twice, looked at the Jew, read it over again, then
asked:

"What does it mean?"

"I vill tell you," replied the man obsequiously. "Your son wanted a
leetle money, and, as I know what a goot mother you are, I lent him
joost a leetle to go on vith."

Jeanne was trembling. "But why did he not come to me for it?"

The Jew entered into a long explanation about a gambling debt which had
had to be paid on a certain morning before midday, that no one would
lend Paul anything as he was not yet of age, and that his "honor would
have been compromised," if he, the Jew, had not "rendered this little
service" to the young man. Jeanne wanted to send for the baron, but her
emotion seemed to have taken all the strength from her limbs, and she
could not rise from her seat.

"Would you be kind enough to ring?" she said to the money-lender, at
last.

He feared some trick, and hesitated for a moment.

"If I inconvenience you, I vill call again," he stammered.

She answered him by a shake of the head, and when he had rung they
waited in silence for the baron. The latter at once understood it all.
The bill was for fifteen hundred francs. He paid the Jew a thousand,
saying to him:

"Don't let me see you here again," and the man thanked him, bowed, and
went away.

Jeanne and the baron at once went over to Havre, but when they arrived
at the college they learnt that Paul had not been there for a month. The
principal had received four letters, apparently from Jeanne, the first
telling him that his pupil was ill, the others to say how he was getting
on, and each letter was accompanied by a doctor's certificate; of
course they were all forged. Jeanne and her father looked at each other
in dismay when they heard this news, and the principal feeling very
sorry for them took them to a magistrate that the police might be set to
find the young man.

Jeanne and the baron slept at an hotel that night, and the next day Paul
was discovered at the house of a fast woman. His mother and grandfather
took him back with them to Les Peuples and the whole of the way not a
word was exchanged. Jeanne hid her face in her handkerchief and cried,
and Paul looked out of the window with an air of indifference.

Before