terrible shocks which reverberate through every moment of the years
that follow. For a few moments he stood beside the bed where his wife
lay, with her hands folded like a saint, then he kissed her on the
forehead, turned away, drew out his watch, broke the mainspring, and
hung it up beside the hearth. It was eleven o'clock in the morning.

"Mlle. d'Esgrignon," he said, "let us pray God that this hour may not
prove fatal yet again to our house. My uncle the archbishop was
murdered at this hour; at this hour also my father died----"

He knelt down beside the bed and buried his face in the coverlet; his
sister did the same, in another moment they both rose to their feet.
Mlle. d'Esgrignon burst into tears; but the old Marquis looked with
dry eyes at the child, round the room, and again on his dead wife. To
the stubbornness of the Frank he united the fortitude of a Christian.

These things came to pass in the second year of the nineteenth
century. Mlle. d'Esgrignon was then twenty-seven years of age. She was
a beautiful woman. An ex-contractor for forage to the armies of the
Republic, a man of the district, with an income of six thousand
francs, persuaded Chesnel to carry a proposal of marriage to the lady.
The Marquis and his sister were alike indignant with such presumption
in their man of business, and Chesnel was almost heartbroken; he could
not forgive himself for yielding to the Sieur du Croisier's [du
Bousquier] blandishments. The Marquis' manner with his old servant
changed somewhat; never again was there quite the old affectionate
kindliness, which might almost have been taken for friendship. From
that time forth the Marquis was grateful, and his magnanimous and
sincere gratitude continually wounded the poor notary's feelings. To
some sublime natures gratitude seems an excessive payment; they would