be made ready for his signature. Every hour's delay was a new dishonour.
He told his wife that he must go home for a few days; and she prepared
his travelling gear, with a sweet dutiful care that seemed to him like
the ministration of an angel.

"My darling girl, can I ever repay you for the happiness you have brought
me!" he exclaimed, as he watched the slight girlish figure flitting about
the room, busy with the preparations for his journey.

And then he thought of Madelon Frehlter--commonplace, stiff, and
unimpressionable--the most conventional of school-girls, heavy in face,
in figure, in step, in mind even, as it had seemed to him, despite his
sister's praises.

He had been too generous to tell Susan of his engagement, of the
brilliant prospects he forfeited by his marriage, or the risk which he
ran of offending his father by that rash step. But to-night, when he
thought of Madelon's dulness and commonness, it seemed to him as if Susan
had in manner rescued him from a dreadful fate--as maidens were rescued
from sea-monsters in the days of Perseus and Heracles.

"Madelon is not unlike a whale," he thought. "They tell us that whales
are of a sagacious and amiable temper,--and Cydalise was always talking
of Madelon's good sense and amiablity. I am sure it is quite as easy to
believe in the unparalleled virtues of the whale as in the unparalleled
virtues of Madelon Frehlter."

His valise was packed, and he departed for Beaubocage, after a sad and
tender parting from his wife. The journey was a long one in those days,
when no express train had yet thundered across the winding Seine,