read upon her lovely
features; but, as soon as she had seen Maxence, her countenance
changed.

And, in fact, his look of utter distress, the disorder of his
garments, his livid paleness, and the sinister look of his eyes,
showed plainly enough that a great misfortune had befallen him.
In a voice whose agitation betrayed something more than the anxiety
and the sympathy of a friend,

"What is the matter? What has happened?" inquired the girl.

"A terrible misfortune," he replied.

He was hesitating: he wished to tell every thing at once, and knew
not how to begin.

"I have told you," he said, "that my family was very rich."

"Yes."

"Well, we have nothing left, absolutely nothing!" She seemed to
breathe more freely, and, in a tone of friendly irony,

"And it is the loss of your fortune," she said, "that distresses
you thus?"

He raised himself painfully to his feet, and, in a low hoarse voice,

"Honor is lost too," he uttered.

"Honor?"

"Yes. My father has stolen: my father has forged!"

She had become whiter than her collar.

"Your father!" she stammered.

"Yes. For years he has been using the money that was intrusted to
him, until the deficit now amounts to twelve millions."

"Great heavens!"

"And, notwithstanding the enormity of that sum, he was reduced,
during the latter months, to the most miserable expedients,--going
from door to door in the neighborhood, soliciting deposits, until
he actually basely swindled a poor newspaper-vender out of five
hundred francs."

"Why, this is madness! And how did you find out?"

"Last night they came to arrest him. Fortunately we had been
notified; and I helped him to escape through a window of my sister's
room, which opens on the yard of an adjoining house."

"And where is he now?"

"Who knows?"

"Had he any money?"

"Everybody thinks that he carries off millions. I do not believe
it. He even refused to take the few thousand francs which M. de
Thaller had brought him to facilitate his flight."

Mlle. Lucienne shuddered.

"Did you see M. de Thaller?" she asked.

"He got to the house a few moments in advance of the commissary of
police; and a terrible scene took place between him and my father."

"What was he saying?"

"That my father had ruined him."

"And your father?"

"He stammered incoherent phrases. He was like a man who has
received a stunning blow. But we have discovered incredible things.
My father, so austere and so p