too unreasonable with him."

The countess got into a hackney-coach and was driven rapidly to the
newspaper office. At that hour the huge apartments which they occupied

in an old mansion in the rue Feydeau were deserted; not a soul was
there but the watchman, who was greatly surprised to see a young and

pretty woman hurrying through the rooms in evidentdistress. She asked
him to tell her where was Monsieur Nathan.

"At Mademoiselle Florine's, probably," replied the man, taking Marie
for a rival who intended to make a scene.

"Where does he work?"
"In his office, the key of which he carries in his pocket."

"I wish to go there."
The man took her to a dark little room looking out on a rear court-

yard. The office was at right angles. Opening the window of the room
she was in, the countess could look through into the window of the

office, and she saw Nathan sitting there in the editorial arm-chair.
"Break in the door, and be silent about all this; I'll pay you well,"

she said. "Don't you see that Monsieur Nathan is dying?"
The man got an iron bar from the press-room, with which he burst in

the door. Raoul had actually smothered himself, like any poor work-
girl, with a pan of charcoal. He had written a letter to Blondet,

which lay on the table, in which he asked him to ascribe his death to
apoplexy. The countess, however, had arrived in time; she had Raoul

carried to her coach, and then, not knowing where else to care for
him, she took him to a hotel, engaged a room, and sent for a doctor.

In a few hours Raoul was out of danger; but the countess did not leave
him until she had obtained a general confession of the causes of his

act. When he had poured into her heart the dreadful elegy of his woes,
she said, in order to make him willing to live:--

"I can arrange all that."
But, nevertheless, she returned home with a heart oppressed with the

same anxieties and ideas that had darkened Nathan's brow the night
before.

"Well, what was the matter with your sister?" said Felix, when his
wife returned. "You look distressed."

"It is a dreadful history about which I am bound to secrecy," she
said, summoning all her nerve to appear calm before him.

In order to be alone and to think at her ease, she went to the Opera
in the evening, after which she resolved to go (as we have seen) and

discharge her heart into that of her sister, Madame du Tillet;
relating to her the horrible scene of the morning, and begging her

advice and assistance. Neither the one nor the other could then know
that du Tillet himself had lighted the charcoal of the vulgar brazier,

the sight of which had so justly terrified the countess.
"He has but me in all the world," said Marie to her sister, "and I

will not fail him."
That speech contains the secret motive of most women; they can be

heroic when they are certain of being all in all to a grand and
irreproachable being.

CHAPTER VIII
A LOVER SAVED AND LOST

Du Tillet had heard some talk even in financial circles of the more or
less possible adoration of his sister-in-law for Nathan; but he was

one of those who denied it, thinking it incompatible with Raoul's
known relations with Florine. The actress would certainly drive off

the countess, or vice versa. But when, on coming home that evening, he
found his sister-in-law with a perturbed face, in consultation with

his wife about money, it occurred to him that Raoul had, in all
probability, confided to her his situation. The countess must

therefore love him; she had doubtless come to obtain from her sister
the sum due to old Gigonnet. Madame du Tillet, unaware, of course, of

the reasons for her husband's apparently supernatural penetration, had
shown such stupefaction when he told her the sum wanted, that du

Tillet's suspicions became certainties. He was sure now that he held
the thread of all Nathan's possible manoeuvres.

No one knew that the unhappy man himself was in bed in a small hotel
in the rue du Mail, under the name of the office watchman, to whom

Marie had promised five hundred francs if he kept silence as to the
events of the preceding night and morning. Thus bribed, the man, whose

name was Francois Quillet, went back to the office and left word with
the portress that Monsieur Nathan had been taken ill in consequence of

overwork, and was resting. Du Tillet was therefore not surprised at
Raoul's absence. It was natural for the journalist to hide under any

such pretence to avoid arrest. When the sheriff's spies made inquiries
they learned that a lady had carried him away in a public coach early

in the morning; but it took three days to ferret out the number of the
coach, question the driver, and find the hotel where the debtor was

recovering his strength. Thus Marie's prompt action had really gained
for Nathan a truce of four days.

Both sisters passed a cruel night. Such a catastrophe casts the lurid
gleams of its charcoal over the whole of life, showing reefs, pools,

depths, where the eye has hitherto seen only summits and grandeurs.
Struck by the horrible picture of a young man lying back in his chair

to die, with the last proofs of his paper before him, containing in
type his last thoughts, poor Madame du Tillet could think of nothing

else than how to save him and restore a life so precious to her
sister. It is the nature of our mind to see effects before we analyze

their causes. Eugenie recurred to her first idea of consulting Madame
Delphine de Nucingen, with whom she was to dine, and she resolved to

make the attempt, not doubting of success. Generous, like all persons
who are not bound in the polished steel armor of modern society,

Madame du Tillet resolved to take the whole matter upon herself.
The countess, on the other hand, happy in the thought that she had

saved Raoul's life, spent the night in devising means to obtain the
forty thousand francs. In emergencies like these women are sublime;

they find contrivances which would astonishthieves, business men, and
usurers, if those three classes of industrials were capable of being

astonished. First, the countess sold her diamonds and decided on
wearing paste; then she resolved to ask the money from Vandenesse on

her sister's account; but these were dishonorable means, and her soul
was too noble not to recoil at them; she merely conceived them, and

cast them from her. Ask money of Vandenesse to give to Nathan! She
bounded in her bed with horror at such baseness. Wear false diamonds

to deceive her husband! Next she thought of borrowing the money from
the Rothschilds, who had so much, or from the archbishop of Paris,

whose mission it was to help persons in distress; darting thus from
thought to thought, seeking help in all. She deplored belonging to a

class opposed to the government. Formerly, she could easily have
borrowed the money on the steps of the throne. She thought of

appealing to her father, the Comte de Granville. But that great
magistrate had a horror of illegalities; his children knew how little

he sympathized with the trials of love; he was now a misanthrope and
held all affairs of the heart in horror. As for the Comtesse de

Granville, she was living a retired life on one of her estates in
Normandy, economizing and praying, ending her days between priests and

money-bags, cold as ever to her dying moment. Even supposing that
Marie had time to go to Bayeux and implore her, would her mother give

her such a sum unless she explained why she wanted it? Could she say
she had debts? Yes, perhaps her mother would be softened by the wants

of her favorite child. Well, then! in case all other means failed, she
WOULD go to Normandy. The dreadful sight of the morning, the effects

she had made to revive Nathan, the hours passed beside his pillow, his
broken confession, the agony of a great soul, a vast genius stopped in

its upwardflight by a sordidvulgar obstacle,--all these things
rushed into her memory and stimulated her love. She went over and over

her emotions, and felt her love to be deeper in these days of misery
than in those of Nathan's fame and grandeur. She felt the nobility of

his last words said to her in Lady Dudley's boudoir. What sacredness
in that farewell! What grandeur in the immolation of a selfish

happiness which would have been her torture! The countess had longed
for emotions, and now she had them,--terrible, cruel, and yet most

precious. She lived a deeper life in pain than in pleasure. With what
delight she said to herself: "I have saved him once, and I will save

him again." She heard him cry out when he felt her lips upon his
forehead, "Many a poor wretch does not know what love is!"