her father. But all at
once a horrible suspicion crossed her mind, and she rushed to her
husband's room. She reached it in a bound, blanched and panting. He was
in bed reading.

He asked, startled: "Well, what is it? What is the matter with you?"

She stammered: "Have you seen Susan?"

"I? No. Why?"

"She has--she has--gone! She is not in her room."

He sprang onto the carpet, thrust his feet into his slippers, and, with
his shirt tails floating in the air, rushed in turn to his daughter's
room. As soon as he saw it, he no longer retained any doubt. She had
fled. He dropped into a chair and placed his lamp on the ground in
front of him.

His wife had rejoined him, and stammered: "Well?"

He had no longer the strength to reply; he was no longer enraged, he
only groaned: "It is done; he has got her. We are done for."

She did not understand, and said: "What do you mean? done for?"

"Yes, by Jove! He will certainly marry her now."

She gave a cry like that of a wild beast: "He, never! You must be mad!"

He replied, sadly: "It is no use howling. He has run away with her, he
has dishonored her. The best thing is to give her to him. By setting to
work in the right way no one will be aware of this escapade."

She repeated, shaken by terrible emotion: "Never, never; he shall never
have Susan. I will never consent."

Walter murmured, dejectedly: "But he has got her. It is done. And he
will keep her and hide her as long as we do not yield. So, to avoid

scandal, we must give in at once."

His wife, torn by pangs she could not acknowledge, repeated: "No, no, I
will never consent."

He said, growing impatient: "But there is no disputing about it. It must
be done. Ah, the rascal, how he has done us! He is a sharp one. All the
same, we might have made a far better choice as regards position, but
not as regards intelligence and prospects. He will be a deputy and a
minister."

Madame Walter declared, with savage energy: "I will never allow him to
marry Susan. You understand--never."

He ended by getting angry and taking up, as a practical man, the cudgels
on behalf of Pretty-boy. "Hold your tongue," said he. "I tell you again
that it must be so; it absolutely must. And who knows? Perhaps we shall
not regret it. With men of that stamp one never knows what may happen.
You saw how he overthrew in three articles that fool of a
Laroche-Mathieu, and how he did it with dignity, which was infernally
difficult in his posi