"Poor Camille can hardly keep awake," the Vicomtesse hastily broke in.
--"Go to bed, child; you have no need of appalling pictures to keep

you pure in heart and conduct."
Camille de Grandlieu took the hint and went.

"You were going rather too far, dear M. Derville," said the
Vicomtesse, "an attorney is not a mother of daughters nor yet a

preacher."
"But any newspaper is a thousand times----"

"Poor Derville!" exclaimed the Vicomtesse, "what has come over you? Do
you really imagine that I allow a daughter of mine to read the

newspapers?--Go on," she added after a pause.
"Three months after everything was signed and sealed between the Count

and Gobseck----"
"You can call him the Comte de Restaud, now that Camille is not here,"

said the Vicomtesse.
"So be it! Well, time went by, and I saw nothing of the counter-deed,

which by rights should have been in my hands. An attorney in Paris
lives in such a whirl of business that with certain exceptions which

we make for ourselves, we have not the time to give each individual
client the amount of interest which he himself takes in his affairs.

Still, one day when Gobseck came to dine with me, I asked him as we
left the table if he knew how it was that I had heard no more of M. de

Restaud.
" 'There are excellent reasons for that,' he said; 'the noble Count is

at death's door. He is one of the soft stamp that cannot learn how to
put an end to chagrin, and allow it to wear them out instead. Life is

a craft, a profession; every man must take the trouble to learn that
business. When he has learned what life is by dint of painful

experiences, the fibre of him is toughened, and acquires a certain
elasticity, so that he has his sensibilities under his own control; he

disciplines himself till his nerves are like steel springs, which
always bend, but never break; given a sound digestion, and a man in

such training ought to live as long as the cedars of Lebanon, and
famous trees they are.'

" 'Then is the Count actually dying?' I asked.
" 'That is possible,' said Gobseck; 'the winding up of his estate will

be a juicy bit of business for you.'
"I looked at my man, and said, by way of sounding him:

" 'Just explain to me how it is that we, the Count and I, are the only
men in whom you take an interest?'

" 'Because you are the only two who have trusted me without
finessing,' he said.

"Although this answer warranted my belief that Gobseck would act
fairly even if the counter-deed were lost, I resolved to go to see the

Count. I pleaded a business engagement, and we separated.
"I went straight to the Rue du Helder, and was shown into a room where

the Countess sat playing with her children. When she heard my name,
she sprang up and came to meet me, then she sat down and pointed

without a word to a chair by the fire. Her face wore the inscrutable
mask beneath which women of the world conceal their most vehement

emotions. Trouble had withered that face already. Nothing of its
beauty now remained, save the marvelous outlines in which its

principal charm had lain.
" 'It is essential, madame, that I should speak to M. le Comte----"

" 'If so, you would be more favored than I am,' she said, interrupting
me. 'M. de Restaud will see no one. He will hardly allow his doctor to

come, and will not be nursed even by me. When people are ill, they
have such strange fancies! They are like children, they do not know

what they want.'
" 'Perhaps, like children, they know very well what they want.'

"The Countess reddened. I almost repented a thrustworthy of Gobseck.
So, by way of changing the conversation, I added, 'But M. de Restaud

cannot possibly lie there alone all day, madame.'
" 'His oldest boy is with him,' she said.

"It was useless to gaze at the Countess; she did not blush this time,
and it looked to me as if she were resolved more firmly than ever that

I should not penetrate into her secrets.
" 'You must understand, madame, that my proceeding is no way

indiscreet. It is strongly to his interest--' I bit my lips, feeling
that I had gone the wrong way to work. The Countess immediately took

advantage of my slip.
" 'My interests are in no way separate from my husband's, sir,' said

she. 'There is nothing to prevent your addressing yourself to me----'
" 'The business which brings me here concerns no one but M. le Comte,'

I said firmly.
" 'I will let him know of your wish to see him.'

"The civil tone and expression assumed for the occasion did not impose
upon me; I divined that she would never allow me to see her husband. I

chatted on about indifferent matters for a little while, so as to
study her; but, like all women who have once begun to plot for

themselves, she could dissimulate with the rare perfection which, in
your sex, means the last degree of perfidy. If I may dare to say it, I

looked for anything from her, even a crime. She produced this feeling
in me, because it was so evident from her manner and in all that she

did or said, down to the very inflections of her voice, that she had
an eye to the future. I went.

"Now, I will pass on to the final scenes of this adventure, throwing
in a few circumstances brought to light by time, and some details

guessed by Gobseck's perspicacity or by my own.
"When the Comte de Restaud apparently plunged into the vortex of

dissipation, something passed between the husband and wife, something
which remains an impenetrable secret, but the wife sank even lower in

the husband's eyes. As soon as he became so ill that he was obliged to
take to his bed, he manifested his aversion for the Countess and the

two youngest children. He forbade them to enter his room, and any
attempt to disobey his wishes brought on such dangerous attacks that

the doctor implored the Countess to submit to her husband's wish.
"Mme. de Restaud had seen the family estates and property, nay, the

very mansion in which she lived, pass into the hands of Gobseck, who
appeared to play the fantastic ogre so far as their wealth was

concerned. She partially understood what her husband was doing, no
doubt. M. de Trailles was traveling in England (his creditors had been

a little too pressing of late), and no one else was in a position to
enlighten the lady, and explain that her husband was taking

precautions against her at Gobseck's suggestion. It is said that she
held out for a long while before she gave the signature required by

French law for the sale of the property; nevertheless the Count gained
his point. The Countess was convinced that her husband was realizing

his fortune, and that somewhere or other there would be a little bunch
of notes representing the amount; they had been deposited with a

notary, or perhaps at the bank, or in some safe hiding-place.
Following out her train of thought, it was evident that M. de Restaud

must of necessity have some kind of document in his possession by
which any remaining property could be recovered and handed over to his

son.
"So she made up her mind to keep the strictest possible watch over the

sick-room. She ruled despotically in the house, and everything in it
was submitted to this feminine espionage. All day she sat in the salon

adjoining her husband's room, so that she could hear every syllable
that he uttered, every least movement that he made. She had a bed put

there for her of a night, but she did not sleep very much. The doctor
was entirely in her interests. Such wifely devotion seemed

praiseworthy enough. With the natural subtlety of perfidy, she took
care to disguise M. de Restaud's repugnance for her, and feigned

distress so perfectly that she gained a sort of celebrity. Strait-
laced women were even found to say that she had expiated her sins.

Always before her eyes she beheld a vision of the destitution to
follow on the Count's death if her presence of mind should fail her;

and in these ways the wife, repulsed from the bed of pain on which her
husband lay and groaned, had drawn a charmed circle round about it. So

near, yet kept at a distance; all-powerful, but in disgrace, the
apparentlydevoted wife was lying in wait for death and opportunity;

crouching like the ant-lion at the bottom of his spiral pit, ever on
the watch for the prey that cannot escape, listening to the fall of