g smile.

"Well, suppose I endorse Monsieur Popinot's notes?" said Pillerault,
playing his last card.

"You are gold by the ingot, Monsieur Pillerault; but I don't want bars
of gold, I want my money."

Pillerault and Popinot bowed and went away. Going down the stairs,
Popinot's knees shook under him.

"Is that a man?" he said to Pillerault.

"They say so," replied the other. "My boy, always bear in mind this
short interview. Anselme, you have just seen the banking-business
unmasked, without its cloak of courtesy. Unexpected events are the screw
of the press, we are the grapes, the bankers are the casks. That land
speculation is no doubt a good one; Gigonnet, or some one behind him,
means to strangle Cesar and step into his skin. It is all over; there's
no remedy. But such is the Bank: be warned; never have recourse to it!"

After this horrible morning, during which Madame Birotteau for the first
time sent away those who came for their money, taking their addresses,
the courageous woman, happy in the thought that she was thus sparing her
husband from distress, saw Popinot and Pillerault, for whom she waited
with ever-growing anxiety, return at eleven o'clock, and read her
sentence in their faces. The assignment was inevitable.

"He will die of grief," said the poor woman.

"I could almost wish he might," said Pillerault, solemnly; "but he is so
religious that, as things are now, his director, the Abbe Loraux, alone
can save him."

Pillerault, Popinot, and Constance waited while a clerk was sent to
bring the Abbe Loraux, before they carried up to Cesar the schedule
which Celestin had prepared, and asked him to affix his signature. The
clerks were in despair, for they loved their master. At four o'clock
the good priest came; Constance explained the misfortune that had fallen
upon them, and the abbe went upstairs as a soldier mounts the breach.

"I know why you have come!" cried Birotteau.

"My son," said the priest, "your feelings of resignation to the Divine
will have long been known to me; it now remains to apply them. Keep
your eyes upon the cross; never cease to behold it, and think upon the
humiliations heaped upon the Saviour of men. Meditate upon the agonies
of his passion, and you will be able to bear the mortification which God
has laid upon you--"

"My brother, the abbe, has already prepared me," said Cesar, showing the
letter, which he had re-read and now held out to his confessor.

"You have a g