be of all living deaths the worst. From the galleys there is always the
hope of escaping--an underground passage, burrowed out with one's
finger-nails in the dead of the night--a work lasting twenty years or so,
but with a feeble star of hope always glimmering at the end of the
passage. But from the salon, and mamma, and the poodle, and the good,
unctuous, lazy old director, and papa's apoplectic snoring, and the
plaintive little songs and monotonous embroideries of one's wife, there
would be no escape. Ah, bah!"

Gustave shuddered, and the two women shuddered as they heard him. The
prospect was by no means promising; but Madame Lenoble and her daughter
did not utterly despair. Gustave's heart was disengaged. That was a great
point; and for the rest, surely persuasion might do much.

Then came that phenomenon seen very often in this life--a
generous-minded, right-thinking young man talked into a position which of
all others is averse from his own inclinations. The mother persuaded, the
sister pleaded, the father dwelt dismally upon the poverty of Beaubocage,
the wealth of Cotenoir. It was the story of auld Robin Gray reversed.
Gustave perceived that his refusal to avail himself of this splendid
destiny would be a bitter and lasting grief to these people who loved him
so fondly--whom he loved as fondly in return. Must he not be a churl to
disappoint hopes so unselfish, to balk an ambition so innocent? And only
because Madelon was not the most attractive or the prettiest of women!

The young man stood firm against all their arguments, he was unmoved by
all their pleading. It was only when his anxious kindred had given up the
battle for lost that Gustave wavered. Their mute despair moved him more
than the most persuasive eloquence; and the end was submission. He left
Beaubocage the plighted lover of that woman who, of all others, he would