ing you can to
gain his confidence; and when you have succeeded, you will plunder him."

George shook his head. "I am not in any mood for joking."

"I am not joking," replied his adviser. "Rob that man, assassinate him
even--that would be no worse crime than you would commit in taking a
young girl in good health in order to get a portion of her dowry,
when at the same time you would have to expose her to the frightful
consequences of the disease which you would give her."

"Frightful consequences?" echoed George.

"Consequences of which death would not be the most frightful."

"But, sir, you were saying to me just now--"

"Just now I did not tell you everything. Even reduced, suppressed a
little by our remedies, the disease remains mysterious, menacing, and
in its sum, sufficiently grave. So it would be an infamy to expose your
fiancee in order to avoid an inconvenience, however great that might
be."

But George was still not to be convinced. Was it certain that this
misfortune would befall Henriette, even with the best attention?

Said the other: "I do not wish to lie to you. No, it is not absolutely
certain, it is probable. And there is another truth which I wish to
tell you now: our remedies are not infallible. In a certain number of
cases--a very small number, scarcely five per cent--they have remained
without effect. You might be one of those exceptions, your wife might be
one. What then?"

"I will employ a word you used just now, yourself. We should have to
expect the worst catastrophes."

George sat in a state of complete despair.

"Tell me what to do, then," he said.

"I can tell you only one thing: don't marry. You have a most serious
blemish. It is as if you owed a debt. Perhaps no one will ever come to
claim it; on the other hand, perhaps a pitiless creditor will come all
at once, presenting a brutal demand for immediate payment. Come now--you
are a business man. Marriage is a contract; to marry without saying
anything--that means to enter into a bargain by means of passive
dissimulation. That's the term, is it not? It is dishonesty, and it
ought to come under the law."

George, being a lawyer, could appreciate the argument, and could think
of nothing to say to it.

"What shall I do?" he asked.

The other answered, "Go to your father-in-law and tell him frankly the
truth."

"But," cried the young man, wildly, "there will be no question then of
three or four years' delay. He will refuse hi