"Insults!" he cried in a voice that could have been heard all through the house. "Do you call it an insult when a man claims his own? If you think you can make me hush, you are mistaken in your man, M. Favoral, Jun. I am not rich myself: my father has not stolen to leave me an income. It is not in gambling at the bourse that I made these ten thousand francs. It is by the sweat of my body, by working hard night and day for years, by depriving myself of a glass of wine when I was thirsty. And I am to lose them? By the holy name of heaven, we'll have to see about that! If everybody was like me, there would not be so many scoundrels going about, their pockets filled with other people's money, and from the top of their carriage laughing at the poor fools they have ruined. Come, my ten thousand francs, canaille, or I take my pay on your back."
Maxence, enraged, was about to throw himself upon the man, and a disgusting struggle was about to begin, when Mlle. Gilberte stepped between them.
"Your threats are as cowardly as your insults, Monsieur Bertan," she uttered in a quivering voice. "You have known us long enough to be aware that we know nothing of our father's business, and that we have nothing ourselves. All we can do is to give up to our creditors our very last crumb. Thus it shall be done. And now, sir, please retire."
There was so much dignity in her sorrow, and so imposing was her attitude, that the baker stood abashed.
"Ah! if that's the way," he stammered awkwardly; "and since you meddle with it, mademoiselle" - And he retreated precipitately, growling at the same time threats and excuses, and slamming the doors after him hard enough to break the partitions.
"What a disgrace!" murmured Mme. Favoral. Crushed by this last scene, she was choking; and her children had to carry her to the open window. She recovered almost at once; but thus, through the darkness, bleak and cold, she had like a vision of her husband; and, throwing herself back, "0 great heavens!" she uttered, "where did he go when he left us?
Where is he now? What is he doing? What has become of him?"
Her married life had been for Mme. Favoral but a slow torture. It was in vain that she would have looked back through her past life for some of those happy days which leave their luminous track in life, and towards which the mind turns in the hours of grief.
Vincent Favoral had never been aught but a brutal despot, abusing the resignation of his victim. And yet, had he died, she would have wept bitterly over him in all the sincerity of her honest and ****** soul. Habit! Prisoners have been known to shed tears over the grave of their jailer. Then he was her husband, after all, the father of her children, the only man who existed for her. For twenty-six years they had never been separated: they had sat at the same table: they had slept side by side.
Yes, she would have wept over him. But how much less poignant would her grief have been than at this moment, when it was complicated by all the torments of uncertainty, and by the most frightful apprehensions!
Fearing lest she might take cold, her children had removed her to the sofa, and there, all shivering, "Isn't it horrible," she said, "not to know any thing of your father?
- to think that at this very moment, perhaps, pursued by the police, he is wandering in despair through the streets, without daring to ask anywhere for shelter."
Her children had no time to answer and comfort her; for at this moment the door-be11 rang again.
"Who can it be now?" said Mme. Favoral with a start.
This time there was no discussion in the hall. Steps sounded on the floor of the dining-room; the door opened; and M. Desclavettes, the old bronze-merchant, walked, or rather slipped into the parlor.
Hope, fear, anger, all the sentiments which agitated his soul, could be read on his pale and cat-like face.
"It is I," he commenced.
Maxence stepped forward.
"Have you heard any thing from my father, sir?"
"No," answered the old merchant, "I confess I have not; and I was just coming to see if you had yourselves. Oh, I know very well that this is not exactly the hour to call at a house; but I thought, that, after what took place this evening, you would not be in bed yet. I could not sleep myself. You understand a friendship of twenty years' standing! So I took Mme. Desclavettes home, and here I am."
"We feel very thankful for your kindness," murmured Mme. Favoral.