incipal attribute
of a great man. If he is deceived (for strength as well as weakness may
make a man a dupe) his contempt will serve him as an axe with which to
cut through all. This greatness, however, is the exception. Which of us
has not known what it is to be abandoned by the spirit which sustains
our frail machine, and to hearken to that mysterious Voice denying
all? Paul, his mind going over the past, and caught here and there by
irrefutable facts, believed and doubted all. Lost in thought, a prey
to an awful and involuntary incredulity, which was combated by the
instincts of his own pure love and his faith in Natalie, he read and
re-read that wordy letter, unable to decide the question which it raised
either for or against his wife. Love is sometimes as great and true when
smothered in words as it is in brief, strong sentences.

To understand the situation into which Paul de Manerville was about to
enter we must think of him as he was at this moment, floating upon the
ocean as he floated upon his past, looking back upon the years of his
life as he looked at the limitless water and cloudless sky about him,
and ending his reverie by returning, through tumults of doubt, to faith,
the pure, unalloyed and perfect faith of the Christian and the lover,
which enforced the voice of his faithful heart.

It is necessary to give here his own letter to de Marsay written on
leaving Paris, to which his friend replied in the letter he received
through old Mathias from the dock:--

From Comte Paul de Manerville to Monsieur le Marquis Henri de
Marsay:

Henri,--I have to say to you one of the most vital words a man can
say to his friend:--I am ruined. When you read this I shall be on
the point of sailing from Bordeaux to Calcutta on the brig
"Belle-Amelie."

You will find in the hands of your notary a deed which only needs
your signature to be legal. In it, I lease my house to you for six
years at a nominal rent. Send a duplicate of that deed to my wife.
I am forced to take this precaution that Natalie may continue to
live in her own home without fear of being driven out by
creditors.

I also convey to you by deed the income of my share of the
entailed property for four years; the whole amounting to one
hundred and fifty thousand francs, which sum I beg you to lend me
and to send in a bill of exchange on some house in Bordeaux to my
notary, Maitre Mathias. My wife will give you her signatur