gels. Do you know what the unhappy
Torpille had done for three of them? One of them was her lover for two
months. She was poor, and picked up a living in the gutter; he had not
a sou; like me, when you rescued me, he was very near the river; this
fellow would get up at night and go to the cupboard where the girl kept
the remains of her dinner and eat it. At last she discovered the trick;
she understood the shameful thing, and took care to leave a great deal;
then she was happy. She never told any one but me, that night, coming
home from the opera.

"The second had stolen some money; but before the theft was found out,
she lent him the sum, which he was enabled to replace, and which he
always forgot to repay to the poor child.

"As to the third, she made his fortune by playing out a farce worthy of
Figaro's genius. She passed as his wife and became the mistress of a man
in power, who believed her to be the most innocent of good citizens. To
one she gave life, to another honor, to the third fortune--what does it
all count for to-day? And this is how they reward her!"

"Would you like to see them dead?" said Herrera, in whose eyes there
were tears.

"Come, that is just like you! I know you by that----"

"Nay, hear all, raving poet," said the priest. "La Torpille is no more."

Lucien flew at Herrera to seize him by the throat, with such violence
that any other man must have fallen backwards; but the Spaniard's arm
held off his assailant.

"Come, listen," said he coldly. "I have made another woman of her,
chaste, pure, well bred, religious, a perfect lady. She is being
educated. She can, if she may, under the influence of your love, become
a Ninon, a Marion Delorme, a du Barry, as the journalist at the opera
ball remarked. You may proclaim her your mistress, or you may retire
behind a curtain of your own creating, which will be wiser. By either
method you will gain profit and pride, pleasure and advancement; but if
you are as great a politician as you are a poet, Esther will be no more
to you than any other woman of the town; for, later, perhaps she may
help us out of difficulties; she is worth her weight in gold. Drink, but
do not get tipsy.

"If I had not held the reins of your passion, where would you be now?
Rolling with La Torpille in the slough of misery from which I dragged
you. Here, read this," said Herrera, as simply as Talma in _Manlius_,
which he had never seen.

A sheet of paper was laid on the poet's