s and shrubs, would enjoy the pleasures of being indissolubly united.
The woman was more eager than the man in giving way to these visions of
happiness. She sometimes said, "What hinders us now? Let us go." But
Serge, prudent and discreet, even in the most affectionate moments, led
Jeanne to take a more sensible view. What was the use of a scandal? Did
they not belong to each other?

Then the young woman reproached him for not loving her as much as she
loved him. She was tired of dissimulating; her husband was an object of
horror to her, and she had to tell him untruths and submit to his
caresses which were revolting to her. Serge calmed her with a kiss, and
bade her wait awhile.

Pierre, rendered anxious on hearing that Serge had joined Herzog in his
dangerous financial speculations, had left his mines and had just
arrived. The letters which Micheline addressed to the friend of her
youth, her enforced confidant in trouble, were calm and resigned. Full of
pride, she had carefully hidden from Pierre the cause of her troubles. He
was the last person by whom she would like to be pitied, and her letters
had represented Serge as repentant and full of good feeling. Marechal,
for similar reasons, had kept his friend in the dark. He feared Pierre's
interference, and he wished to spare Madame Desvarennes the grief of
seeing her adopted son quarreling with her son-in-law.

But the placards announcing the establishment of the Universal Credit
Company made their way into the provinces, and one morning Pierre found
some stuck on the walls of his establishment. Seeing the name of Panine,
and not that of Cayrol, Pierre shuddered. The unpleasant ideas which he
experienced formerly when Herzog was introduced to the Desvarennes
recurred to his mind. He wrote to the mistress to ask what was going on,
and not receiving an answer, he started off without hesitation for Paris.

He found Madame Desvarennes in a terrible state of excitement. The shares
had just fallen a hundred and twenty francs. A panic had ensued. The
affair was considered as absolutely lost, and the shareholders were
aggravating matters by wanting to sell out at once.

Savinien was just coming away from the mistress's room. He wanted to see
the downfall of the Prince, whom he had always hated, looking upon him as
a usurper of his own rights upon the fortune of the Desvarennes. He began
lamenting to his aunt, when she turned upon him with unusual harshness,
and he felt bo