new experiment; then,
as he looked about the parlor, Balthazar's eyes would fasten on the spot
where his wife had died, a film of tears rolled like hot grains of sand
across the arid pupils of his eyes, which thought had made immense,
and his head fell forward on his breast. Like a Titan he had lifted the
world, and the world fell on his breast and crushed him.

This gigantic grief, so manfully controlled, affected Pierquin and
Emmanuel powerfully, and each felt moved at times to offer this man the
necessary money to renew his search,--so contagious are the convictions
of genius! Both understood how it was that Madame Claes and Marguerite
had flung their all into this gulf; but reason promptly checked the
impulse of their hearts, and their emotion was spent in efforts at
consolation which still further embittered the anguish of the doomed
Titan.

Claes never spoke of his eldest daughter, and showed no interest in her
departure nor any anxiety as to her silence in not writing either to him
or to Felicie. When de Solis or Pierquin asked for news of her he seemed
annoyed. Did he suspect that Marguerite was working against him? Was he
humiliated at having resigned the majestic rights of paternity to his
own child? Had he come to love her less because she was now the father,
he the child? Perhaps there were many of these reasons, many of these
inexpressible feelings which float like vapors through the soul, in the
mute disgrace which he laid upon Marguerite. However great may be the
great men of earth, be they known or unknown, fortunate or unfortunate
in their endeavors, all have likenesses which belong to human nature.
By a double misfortune they suffer through their greatness not less than
through their defects; and perhaps Balthazar needed to grow accustomed
to the pangs of wounded vanity. The life he was leading, the evenings
when these four persons met together in Marguerite's absence, were full
of sadness and vague, uneasy apprehensions. The days were barren like
a parched-up soil; where, nevertheless, a few flowers grew, a few
rare consolations, though without Marguerite, the soul, the hope, the
strength of the family, the atmosphere seemed misty.

Two months went by in this way, during which Balthazar awaited the
return of his daughter. Marguerite was brought back to Douai by her
uncle who remained at the house instead of returning to Cambrai, no
doubt to lend the weight of his authority to some coup d'etat plann