and the reagents--"

"Is that all?" asked Marguerite.

Again Balthazar made a sign to Lemulquinier, who replied, as if under a
spell,--

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"Very good," she said, "I will give them to you."

Balthazar kissed her joyously and said,--

"You are an angel, my child."

He breathed at his ease and glanced at her with eyes that were less sad;
and yet, in spite of this apparent joy, Marguerite easily detected the
signs of deep anxiety upon his face, and felt certain that the three
thousand francs represented only the pressing debts of his laboratory.

"Be frank with me, father," she said, letting him seat her on his knee;
"you owe more than that. Tell me all, and come back to your home without
an element of fear in the midst of the general joy."

"My dear Marguerite," he said, taking her hands and kissing them with a
grace that seemed a memory of her youth, "you would scold me--"

"No," she said.

"Truly?" he asked, giving way to childish expressions of delight. "Can I
tell you all? will you pay--"

"Yes," she said, repressing the tears which came into her eyes.

"Well, I owe--oh! I dare not--"

"Tell me, father."

"It is a great deal."

She clasped her hands, with a gesture of despair.

"I owe thirty thousand francs to Messieurs Protez and Chiffreville."

"Thirty thousand francs," she said, "is just the sum I have laid by. I
am glad to give it to you," she added, respectfully kissing his brow.

He rose, took his daughter in his arms, and whirled about the room,
dancing her as though she were an infant; then he placed her in the
chair where she had been sitting, and exclaimed:--

"My darling child! my treasure of love! I was half-dead: the
Chiffrevilles have written me three threatening letters; they were about
to sue me,--me, who would have made their fortune!"

"Father," said Marguerite in accents of despair, "are you still
searching?"

"Yes, still searching," he said, with the smile of a madman, "and I
shall FIND. If you could only understand the point we have reached--"

"We? who are we?"

"I mean Mulquinier: he has understood me, he loves me. Poor fellow! he
is devoted to me."

Conyncks entered at the moment and interrupted the conversation.
Marguerite made a sign to her father to say no more, fearing lest he
should lower himself in her uncle's eyes. She was frightened at the
ravages thought had made in that noble mind, absorbed in searching for
the solution of a problem