o prevent her asking him the question he saw on her lips.

"We are not rich enough to do anything!"

"Ah! if you could," she murmured.

He became very angry. "If I could!" he cried. "I expected that! You
know better than any one else how enormous our expenses are here. It is
enough that for two years I have supported that boy without paying for
the thefts he has committed. Six thousand francs! where shall I find
them?"

"I did not think of you," she answered, slowly.

"Of whom, then?" he questioned, sternly.

With heightened color, and with lips quivering with shame, she uttered a
name, expecting from her poet an explosion of wrath.

He was silent for a moment.

"I can but make one more sacrifice for you, Charlotte," he said,
pompously.

"Thanks! thanks! How good you are!" she cried.

And they lowered their voices, for Dr. Hirsch was heard descending the
stairs.

It was a most singular conversation--syllabic and disjointed--he
affecting great repugnance, she great brevity. "It was impossible to
trust to a letter," Charlotte said. Then, terrified at her own audacity,
she added, "Suppose I go to Tours myself."

With the utmost tranquillity he answered, "Very well, we will go."

"How good you are, dear!" she cried: "you will go with me there, and
then to Indret with the money!" and the foolish creature kissed his
hands with tears. The truth was that he did not care for her to go to
Tours without him; he knew that she had lived there and been happy.
Suppose she should never return to him! She was so weak, so shallow,
so inconsistent! The sight of her old lover, of the luxury she had
relinquished--the influence of her child, might decide her to cast aside
the heavy chains with which he had loaded her. In addition, he was by
no means averse to this little journey, nor to playing his part in the
drama at Indret.

He told Charlotte that he would never abandon her, that he was ready
to share her sorrows as well as her joys; and, in short, convinced
Charlotte that he loved her more than ever.

At dinner he said to Doctor Hirsch, "We are obliged to go to Indret,
the child has got into trouble, and you must keep house in our absence."
They left by the night express and reached Tours early in the morning.
The old friend of Ida de Barancy lived in one of those pretty chateaux
overlooking the Loire. He was a widower without children, an excellent
man, and a man of the world. In spite of her infidelity, he had none b