"Why do you want to know? You can't help me. My trouble is of a kind a
man does not generally confide to women."

"What is it? An affair of honour?

"Yes."

"Good God! You are going to fight!" she exclaimed, trying to seize him
by the arm. "You are going to fight!"

"Ah! if it were nothing worse than that!" said Quennebert, pacing up and
down the room: "but you need not be alarmed; it is only a money trouble.
I lent a large sum, a few months ago, to a friend, but the knave has run
away and left me in the lurch. It was trust money, and must be replaced
within three days. But where am I to get two thousand francs?"

"Yes, that is a large sum, and not easy to raise at such short notice."

"I shall be obliged to have recourse to some Jew, who will drain me dry.
But I must save my good name at all costs."

Madame Rapally gazed at him in consternation. Maitre Quennebert,
divining her thought, hastened to add--

"I have just one-third of what is needed."

"Only one-third?"

"With great care, and by scraping together all I possess, I can make up