that was perhaps insoluble. Balthazar, who
saw and knew nothing outside of his furnaces, seemed not to realize the
liberation of his fortune.

On the morrow they started for Flanders. During the journey Marguerite
gained some confused light upon the position in which Lemulquinier and
her father stood to each other. The valet had acquired an ascendancy
over his master such as common men without education are able to obtain
over great minds to whom they feel themselves necessary; such men,
taking advantage of concession after concession, aim at complete
dominion with the persistency that comes of a fixed idea. In this case
the master had contracted for the man the sort of affection that grows
out of habit, like that of a workman for his creative tool, or an Arab
for the horse that gives him freedom. Marguerite studied the signs of
this tyranny, resolving to withdraw her father from its humiliating yoke
if it were real.

They stopped several days in Paris on the way home, to enable Marguerite
to pay off her father's debts and request the manufacturers of chemical
products to send nothing to Douai without first informing her of any
orders given by Claes. She persuaded her father to change his style of
dress and buy clothes that were suitable to a man of his station. This
corporal restoration gave Balthazar a certain physical dignity which
augured well for a change in his ideas; and Marguerite, joyous in the
thought of all the surprises that awaited her father when he entered his
own house, started for Douai.

Nine miles from the town Balthazar was met by Felicie on horseback,
escorted by her two brothers, Emmanuel, Pierquin, and some of the
nearest friends of the three families. The journey had necessarily
diverted the chemist's mind from its habitual thoughts; the aspect of
his own Flanders acted on his heart; when, therefore, he saw the joyous
company of his family and friends gathering about him his emotion was
so keen that the tears came to his eyes, his voice trembled, his eyelids
reddened, and he held his children in so passionate an embrace, seeming
unable to release them, that the spectators of the scene were moved to
tears.

When at last he saw the House of Claes he turned pale, and sprang from
the carriage with the agility of a young man; he breathed the air of the
court-yard with delight, and looked about him at the smallest details
with a pleasure that could express itself only in gestures: he drew
himself