rday,
in searching for a far more important secret, I think I found the means
of crystallizing carbon, the substance of the diamond. Oh, my dear
wife! in a few days' time you will forgive me all my forgetfulness--I
am forgetful sometimes, am I not? Was I not harsh to you just now? Be
indulgent for a man who never ceases to think of you, whose toils are
full of you--of us."

"Enough, enough!" she said, "let us talk of it all to-night, dear
friend. I suffered from too much grief, and now I suffer from too much
joy."

"To-night," he resumed; "yes, willingly: we will talk of it. If I fall
into meditation, remind me of this promise. To-night I desire to leave
my work, my researches, and return to family joys, to the delights of
the heart--Pepita, I need them, I thirst for them!"

"You will tell me what it is you seek, Balthazar?"

"Poor child, you cannot understand it."

"You think so? Ah! my friend, listen; for nearly four months I have
studied chemistry that I might talk of it with you. I have read
Fourcroy, Lavoisier, Chaptal, Nollet, Rouelle, Berthollet, Gay-Lussac,
Spallanzani, Leuwenhoek, Galvani, Volta,--in fact, all the books
about the science you worship. You can tell me your secrets, I shall
understand you."

"Oh! you are indeed an angel," cried Balthazar, falling at her feet,
and shedding tears of tender feeling that made her quiver. "Yes, we will
understand each other in all things."

"Ah!" she cried, "I would throw myself into those hellish fires which
heat your furnaces to hear these words from your lips and to see you
thus." Then, hearing her daughter's step in the anteroom, she sprang
quickly forward. "What is it, Marguerite?" she said to her eldest
daughter.

"My dear mother, Monsieur Pierquin has just come. If he stays to dinner
we need some table-linen; you forgot to give it out this morning."

Madame Claes drew from her pocket a bunch of small keys and gave them
to the young girl, pointing to the mahogany closets which lined the
ante-chamber as she said:

"My daughter, take a set of the Graindorge linen; it is on your right."

"Since my dear Balthazar comes back to me, let the return be complete,"
she said, re-entering her chamber with a soft and arch expression on her
face. "My friend, go into your own room; do me the kindness to dress for
dinner, Pierquin will be with us. Come, take off this ragged clothing;
see those stains! Is it muratic or sulphuric acid which left these
yellow edges t