sidewalk, slightly dazed. It was only when the door closed that he
understood.

"His conscience!" he murmured. "Behold them! Tartufes!"

After a moment of hesitation, he continued his way and reached the bridge
of Saints-Peres, but he walked with doubtful steps, like a man who does
not know where he is going. Presently he stopped, and, leaning his arms
on the parapet, watched the sombre, rapidly flowing Seine, its small
waves fringed with white foam. The rain had ceased, but the wind blew in
squalls, roughening the surface of the river and making the red and green
lights of the omnibus boats sway in the darkness. The passers-by came
and went, and more than one examined him from the corner of the eye,
wondering what this tall man was doing there, and if he intended to throw
himself into the water.

And why not? What better could he do?

And this was what Saniel said to himself while watching the flowing
water. One plunge, and he would end the fierce battle in which he had so
madly engaged for four years, and which would in the end drive him mad.

It was not the first time that this idea of ending everything had tempted
him, and he only warded it off by constantly inventing combinations which
it seemed to him at the moment might save him. Why yield to such a
temptation before trying everything? And this was how he happened to
appeal to Glady. But he knew him, and knew that his avarice, about which
every one joked, had a certain reason for its existence. However, he
said to himself that if the landed proprietor obstinately refused a
friendly loan, which would only pay the debts of youth, the poet would