ur, when a communication from Jeanne Favart,
an old servant who had lived with the De la Tours in the days of their
prosperity, vividly recalled old and fading memories. She announced
that Madame de la Tour had been for many weeks confined to her bed by
illness, and was, moreover, in great pecuniary distress.

'_Diantre_!' exclaimed Derville, a quicker and stronger pulse than
usual tinging his sallow cheek as he spoke. 'That is a pity. Who,
then, has been minding the business for her?'

'Her daughter Marie, a gentle, pious child, who seldom goes out except
to church, and,' added Jeanne, with a keen look in her master's
countenance, 'the very image of the Madame de la Tour we knew some
twenty years ago.'

'Ha!' M. Derville was evidently disturbed, but not so much so as to
forget to ask with some asperity if 'dinner was not ready?'

'In five minutes,' said Jeanne, but still holding the half-opened door
in her hand. 'They are very, very badly off, monsieur, those
unfortunate De la Tours,' she persisted. 'A _huissier_ this morning
seized their furniture and trade-stock for rent, and if the sum is not
made up by sunset, they will be utterly ruined.'

M. Clement Derville took several hasty turns about the room, and the
audible play of his fingers amongst the Napoleons in his pockets
inspired Jeanne with a hope that he was about to draw forth a
sufficient number for the relief of the cruel necessities of her
former mistress. She was mistaken. Perhaps the touch of his beloved
gold stilled for a time the agitation that had momentarily stirred his
heart.

'It is a pity,' he murmured; and then briskly drawing out his watch,
added sharply: 'But pray let us have dinner. Do you know that it is
full seven minutes past the time that it should be served?'

Jeanne disappeared, and M. Derville was very soon seated at table. But
although the sad tidings he had just heard had not been able to
effectually loosen his purse-strings, they had at least power utterly
to destroy his appetite, albeit the _poulet_ was done to a turn.
Jeanne made no remark on this, as she removed the almost untasted
meal, nor on the quite as unusual fact, that the wine _carafe_ was
already half emptied, and her master himself restless, dreamy, and
preoccupied. Concluding, however, from these symptoms, that a fierce
struggle between generosity and avarice was going on in M. Derville's
breast, she quietly determined on bringing an auxiliary to the aid of
gener