_IV.--The Hour of Darkness_


For some considerable time Balthazar avoided experimental chemistry, and
confined himself to theoretical speculations. He took long walks on the
ramparts; was gloomy, restless, and preoccupied at home. Marguerite
endeavoured to distract his thoughts. One day the old servant, Martha,
said to her: "All is over with us; master is on the road to hell again!"
And she pointed to clouds of smoke issuing from the laboratory chimney.
Marguerite lived as carefully as a nun; all expenses were cut down. She
denied herself ordinary comforts to prepare for the crash. Thanks to
Emmanuel, the boys were now advancing in their studies, and their future
was at least unclouded. But Balthazar had developed the gambler's
recklessness. He sold a forest; he mortgaged his house and silver; he
had no more food than a nigger who sells his wife for a glass of brandy
in the morning, and weeps over his loss at night. Once Marguerite spoke
to her father. She acknowledged that he was master, that his children
would obey him at all costs; but he must know that they scarcely had
bread in the house.

"Bread!" he cried; "no bread in the house of a Claes! Where is all our
property, then?"

She told him how he had sold everything.

"Then, how do we live?"

She held up her needle.

Time went on, and fresh debts hammered at the door of the Maison Claes.