common herd, the scenes of the day had greatly excited him.

He could not help reviewing them, although he made it the rule of his
life never to reflect.

While exposed to the scrutiny of the peasants and of his acquaintances
at the Chateau de Courtornieu, he felt that his honor required him
to appear cold and indifferent, but as soon as he had retired to the
privacy of his own chamber, he gave free vent to his excessive joy.

For his joy _was_ intense, almost verging on delirium.

Now he was forced to admit to himself the immense service Lacheneur had
rendered him in restoring Sairmeuse.

This poor man to whom he had displayed the blackest ingratitude, this
man, honest to heroism, whom he had treated as an unfaithful servant,
had just relieved him of an anxiety which had poisoned his life.

Lacheneur had just placed the Duc de Sairmeuse beyond the reach of a not
probable, but very possible calamity which he had dreaded for some time.

If his secret anxiety had been made known, it would have created much
merriment.

"Nonsense!" people would have exclaimed, "everyone knows that the
Sairmeuse possesses property to the amount of at least eight or ten
millions, in England."

This was true. Only these millions, which had accrued from the estate of