will arrange the matter with you."

A moment before, the marquis had allowed his consternation to show
itself; but this time he knew how to conceal the joy that filled
his soul. So it was in the most indifferent manner, as if the
affair were one of trivial importance, that he thanked the baron
for being so obliging. Plainly enough, he now longed to make his
escape, and indeed, after rattling off a few commonplace remarks.
he rose to his feet and took his leave, exclaiming: "Till the day
after to-morrow, then!"

The baron sank into an arm-chair, completely overcome. A martyr
to a passion that was stronger than reason itself, the victim of a
fatal love which he had not been able to drive from his heart,
Baron Trigault had passed many terrible hours, but never had he
been so completely crushed as at this moment when chance revealed
the secret which he had vainly pursued for years. The old wounds
in his heart opened afresh, and his sufferings were poignant
beyond description. All his efforts to save this woman whom he at
once loved and hated from the depths of degradation, had proved
unavailing. "And she has extorted money from the Count de
Chalusse," he thought; "she sold him the right to adopt their own
daughter." And so strange are the workings of the human heart,
that this circumstance, trivial in comparison with many others,
drove the unfortunate baron almost frantic with rage. What did it
avail him that he had become one of the richest men in Paris? He
allowed his wife eight thousand francs a month, almost one hundred
thousand francs a year, merely for her dresses and fancies. Not a
quarter-day passed, but what he paid her debts to a large amount,
and in spite of all this, she had sunk so low as to extort money