e of you if you are put in prison? Will you soil your white hairs
and the name of Claes with the disgrace of bankruptcy? I will not allow
it. I shall have strength to oppose your madness; it would be dreadful
to see you without bread in your old age. Open your eyes to our
position; see reason at last!"

"Madness!" cried Balthazar, struggling to his feet. He fixed his
luminous eyes upon his daughter, crossed his arms on his breast, and
repeated the word "Madness!" so majestically that Marguerite trembled.

"Ah!" he cried, "your mother would never have uttered that word to me.
She was not ignorant of the importance of my researches; she learned
a science to understand me; she recognized that I toiled for the human
race; she knew there was nothing sordid or selfish in my aims. The
feelings of a loving wife are higher, I see it now, than filial
affection. Yes, Love is above all other feelings. See reason!" he went
on, striking his breast. "Do I lack reason? Am I not myself? You say
we are poor; well, my daughter, I choose it to be so. I am your father,
obey me. I will make you rich when I please. Your fortune? it is a
pittance! When I find the solvent of carbon I will fill your parlor
with diamonds, and they are but a scintilla of what I seek. You can well
afford to wait while I consume my life in superhuman efforts."

"Father, I have no right to ask an account of the four millions you have
already engulfed in this fatal garret. I will not speak to you of
my mother whom you killed. If I had a husband, I should love him,
doubtless, as she loved you; I should be ready to sacrifice all to him,
as she sacrificed all for you. I have obeyed her orders in giving myself
wholly to you; I have proved it in not marrying and compelling you to
render an account of your guardianship. Let us dismiss the past and
think of the present. I am here now to represent the necessity which you
have created for yourself. You must have money to meet your notes--do
you understand me? There is nothing left to seize here but the portrait
of your ancestor, the Claes martyr. I come in the name of my mother, who
felt herself too feeble to defend her children against their father;
she ordered me to resist you. I come in the name of my brothers and my
sister; I come, father, in the name of all the Claes, and I command
you to give up your experiments, or earn the means of pursuing them
hereafter, if pursue them you must. If you arm yourself with the power
o