found utterance in a single cry.

"Ah! here is misfortune!" said she, "we shall not escape it."

It was, indeed, misfortune. One could not doubt it when one saw M.
Lacheneur enter the drawing-room.

He advanced with the heavy, uncertain step of a drunken man, his eye
void of expression, his features distorted, his lips pale and trembling.

"What has happened?" asked the baron, eagerly.

But the other did not seem to hear him.

"Ah! I warned her," he murmured, continuing a monologue which had begun
before he entered the room. "I told my daughter so."

Mme. d'Escorval, after kissing Marie-Anne, drew the girl toward her.

"What has happened? For God's sake, tell me what has happened!" she
exclaimed.

With a gesture expressive of the most sorrowful resignation, the girl
motioned her to look and to listen to M. Lacheneur.

He had recovered from that stupor--that gift of God--which follows
cries that are too terrible for human endurance. Like a sleeper who, on
waking, finds his miseries forgotten during his slumber, lying in wait
for him, he regained with consciousness the capacity to suffer.

"It is only this, Monsieur le Baron," replied the unfortunate man in a
harsh, unnatural voice: "I rose this morning the richest proprietor
in the country, and I shall lay down to-night poorer than the
poorest beggar in this commune. I had everything; I no longer have
anything--nothing but my two hands. They earned me my bread for
twenty-five years; they will earn it for me now until the day of my
death. I had a beautiful dream; it is ended."

Before this outburst of despair, M. d'Escorval turned pale.

"You must exaggerate your misfortune," he faltered; "explain what has
happened."

Unconscious of what he was doing, M. Lacheneur threw his hat upon a
chair, and flinging back his long, gray hair, he said:

"To you I will tell all. I came here for that purpose. I know you; I
know your heart. And have you not done me the honor to call me your
friend?"

Then, with the cruel exactness of the living, breathing truth, he
related the scene which had just taken place at the presbytery.

The baron listened petrified with astonishment, almost doubting the
evidence of his own senses. Mme. d'Escorval's indignant and sorrowful
exclamations showed that every noble sentiment in her soul revolted
against such injustice.

But there was one auditor, whom Marie-Anne alone observed, who was moved
to his very entrails by this recital. T