re the owner of Sairmeuse, it
seems."

This was said with such a careless insolence of manner that the cure
blushed that they should thus treat, in his own house, a man whom he
considered his equal.

He rose and offered the visitors chairs.

"Will you take a seat, dear Monsieur Lacheneur?" said he, with
a politeness intended as a lesson for the duke; "and you, also,
Mademoiselle, do me the honor----"

But the father and the daughter both refused the proffered civility with
a motion of the head.

"Monsieur le Duc," continued Lacheneur, "I am an old servant of your
house----"

"Ah! indeed!"

"Mademoiselle Armande, your aunt, accorded my poor mother the honor of
acting as my godmother----"

"Ah, yes," interrupted the duke. "I remember you now. Our family
has shown great goodness to you and yours. And it was to prove your
gratitude, probably, that you made haste to purchase our estate!"

The former ploughboy was of humble origin, but his heart and his
character had developed with his fortunes; he understood his own worth.

Much as he was disliked, and even detested, by his neighbors, everyone
respected him.

And here was a man who treated him with undisguised scorn. Why? By what
right?

Indignant at the outrage, he made a movement as if to retire.

No one, save his daughter, knew the truth; he had only to keep silence
and Sairmeuse remained his.

Yes, he had still the power to keep Sairmeuse, and he knew it, for
he did not share the fears of the ignorant rustics. He was too well
informed not to be able to distinguish between the hopes of the
_emigres_ and the possible. He knew that an abyss separated the dream
from the reality.

A beseeching word uttered in a low tone by his daughter, made him turn
again to the duke.

"If I purchased Sairmeuse," he answered, in a voice husky with emotion,
"it was in obedience to the command of your dying aunt, and with the
money which she gave me for that purpose. If you see me here, it is only
because I come to restore to you the deposit confided to my keeping."

Anyone not belonging to that class of spoiled fools which surround a
throne would have been deeply touched.

But the duke thought this grand act of honesty and of generosity the
most simple and natural thing in the world.

"That is very well, so far as the principal is concerned," said he. "Let
us speak now of the interest. Sairmeuse, if I remember rightly, yielded
an average income of one thousand louis