Dumay sent agents to represent his master in New York, Paris, and

London, and followed up the assignments of the three banking-houses
whose failure had caused the ruin of the Havre house, thus realizing

five hundred thousand francs between 1826 and 1828, an eighth of
Charles's whole fortune; then, according to the latter's directions

given on the night of his departure, he sent that sum to New York
through the house of Mongenod to the credit of Monsieur Charles

Mignon. All this was done with military obedience, except in a matter
of withholding thirty thousand francs for the personal expenses of

Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon as the colonel had ordered him to do,
but which Dumay did not do. The Breton sold his own little house for

twenty thousand francs, which sum he gave to Madame Mignon, believing
that the more capital he sent to his colonel the sooner the latter

would return.
"He might perish for the want of thirty thousand francs," Dumay

remarked to Latournelle, who bought the little house at its full
value, where an apartment was always kept ready for the inhabitants of

the Chalet.
CHAPTER IV

A SIMPLE STORY
Such was the result to the celebrated house of Mignon at Havre of the

crisis of 1825-26, which convulsed many of the principal business
centres in Europe and caused the ruin of several Parisian bankers,

among them (as those who remember that crisis will recall) the
president of the chamber of commerce.

We can now understand how this great disaster, coming suddenly at the
close of ten years of domestic happiness, might well have been the

death of Bettina Mignon, again separated from her husband and ignorant
of his fate,--to her as adventurous and perilous as the exile to

Siberia. But the grief which was dragging her to the grave was far
other than these visible sorrows. The caustic that was slowly eating

into her heart lay beneath a stone in the little graveyard of
Ingouville, on which was inscribed:--

BETTINA CAROLINE MIGNON
Died aged twenty-two.

Pray for her.
This inscription is to the young girl whom it covered what many

another epitaph has been for the dead lying beneath them,--a table of
contents to a hidden book. Here is the book, in its dreadful brevity;

and it will explain the oath exacted and taken when the colonel and
the lieutenant bade each other farewell.

A young man of charming appearance, named Charles d'Estourny, came to
Havre for the commonplace purpose of being near the sea, and there he

saw Bettina Mignon. A "soi-disant" fashionable Parisian is never
without introductions, and he was invited at the instance of a friend

of the Mignons to a fete given at Ingouville. He fell in love with
Bettina and with her fortune, and in three months he had done the work

of seduction and enticed her away. The father of a family of daughters
should no more allow a young man whom he does not know to enter his

home than he should leave books and papers lying about which he has
not read. A young girl's innocence is like milk, which a small matter

turns sour,--a clap of thunder, an evil odor, a hot day, a mere
breath.

When Charles Mignon read his daughter's letter of farewell he
instantly despatched Madame Dumay to Paris. The family gave out that a

journey to another climate had suddenly been advised for Caroline by
their physician; and the physician himself sustained the excuse,

though unable to prevent some gossip in the society of Havre. "Such a
vigorous young girl! with the complexion of a Spaniard, and that black

hair!--she consumptive!" "Yes, they say she committed some
imprudence." "Ah, ah!" cried a Vilquin. "I am told she came back

bathed in perspiration after riding on horseback, and drank iced
water; at least, that is what Dr. Troussenard says."

By the time Madame Dumay returned to Havre the catastrophe of the
failure had taken place, and society paid no further attention to the

absence of Bettina or the return of the cashier's wife. At the
beginning of 1827 the newspapers rang with the trial of Charles

d'Estourny, who was found guilty of cheating at cards. The young
corsair escaped into foreign parts without taking thought of

Mademoiselle Mignon, who was of little value to him since the failure
of the bank. Bettina heard of his infamousdesertion and of her

father's ruin almost at the same time. She returned home struck by
death, and wasted away in a short time at the Chalet. Her death at

least protected her reputation. The illness that Monsieur Mignon
alleged to be the cause of her absence, and the doctor's order which

sent her to Nice were now generally believed. Up to the last moment
the mother hoped to save her daughter's life. Bettina was her darling

and Modeste was the father's. There was something touching in the two
preferences. Bettina was the image of Charles, just as Modeste was the

reproduction of her mother. Both parents continued their love for each
other in their children. Bettina, a daughter of Provence, inherited

from her father the beautiful hair, black as a raven's wing, which
distinguishes the women of the South, the brown eye, almond-shaped and

brilliant as a star, the olive tint, the velvet skin as of some golden
fruit, the arched instep, and the Spanish waist from which the short

basque skirt fell crisply. Both mother and father were proud of the
charmingcontrast between the sisters. "A devil and an angel!" they

said to each other, laughing, little thinking it prophetic.
After weeping for a month in the solitude of her chamber, where she

admitted no one, the mother came forth at last with injured eyes.
Before losing her sight altogether she persisted, against the wishes

of her friends, in visiting her daughter's grave, on which she riveted
her gaze in contemplation. That image remained vivid in the darkness

which now fell upon her, just as the red spectrum of an object shines
in our eyes when we close them in full daylight. This terrible and

double misfortune made Dumay, not less devoted, but more anxious about
Modeste, now the only daughter of the father who was unaware of his

loss. Madame Dumay, idolizing Modeste, like other women deprived of
their children, cast her motherliness about the girl,--yet without

disregarding the commands of her husband, who distrusted female
intimacies. Those commands were brief. "If any man, of any age, or any

rank," Dumay said, "speaks to Modeste, ogles her, makes love to her,
he is a dead man. I'll blow his brains out and give myself to the

authorities; my death may save her. If you don't wish to see my head
cut off, do you take my place in watching her when I am obliged to go

out."
For the last three years Dumay had examined his pistols every night.

He seemed to have put half the burden of his oath upon the Pyrenean
hounds, two animals of uncommonsagacity. One slept inside the Chalet,

the other was stationed in a kennel which he never left, and where he
never barked; but terrible would have been the moment had the pair

made their teeth meet in some unknown adventurer.
We can now imagine the sort of life led by mother and daughter at the

Chalet. Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, often accompanied by
Gobenheim, came to call and play whist with Dumay nearly every

evening. The conversation turned on the gossip of Havre and the petty
events of provincial life. The little company separated between nine

and ten o'clock. Modeste put her mother to bed, and together they said
their prayers, kept up each other's courage, and talked of the dear

absent one, the husband and father. After kissing her mother for good-
night, the girl went to her own room about ten o'clock. The next

morning she prepared her mother for the day with the same care, the
same prayers, the same prattle. To her praise be it said that from the

day when the terrible infirmity deprived her mother of a sense,
Modeste had been like a servant to her, displaying at all times the

same solicitude; never wearying of the duty, never thinking it
monotonous. Such constantdevotion, combined with a tenderness rare

among young girls, was thoroughly appreciated by those who witnessed
it. To the Latournelle family, and to Monsieur and Madame Dumay,

Modeste was, in soul, the pearl of price.
On sunny days, between breakfast and dinner, Madame Mignon and Madame

Dumay took a little walk toward the sea. Modeste accompanied them, for
two arms were needed to support the blind mother. About a month before

the scene to which this explanation is a parenthesis, Madame Mignon
had taken counsel with her friends, Madame Latournelle, the notary,

and Dumay, while Madame Dumay carried Modeste in another direction for
a longer walk.

"Listen to what I have to say," said the blind woman. "My daughter is
in love. I feel it; I see it. A singular change has taken place within