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 A\.l. I., p. 290.
 
 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 VIRTUE AND CO., 26, IVY LANE; 
 
 NEW YORK : VIRTUE AND YORSTON. 
 1868.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO, 
 
 CITY KOAD.
 
 
 MRS. GEORGE G. GLYX, 
 
 -^ IN MEMORY 
 
 ~-^ OF GOOD WORK DONE, 
 
 WITH THOSE 
 
 WHO BEAR HER NAME, 
 
 AND 
 
 AS AN UNWORTHY TRIBUTE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE DEEPEST REGARD AND ESTEEM, 
 
 
 ®l]is §ott|j 
 
 
 IS INSCRIBED BY 
 
 1 
 
 V 
 
 THE AUTHOR, 
 
 A. A. A, 
 
 
 
 4 

 
 CONTEiN-TS. 
 
 CHAPTEE, I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Very Smai.l Towi^ 1 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 The Mabiiiage Portion" 22 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 The Sisters 50 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 Martin Prevost's Ambition .... 71 
 YOL. I. h
 
 Vm CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Poor Monsieur Eichaed's Eiches ... 92 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 The Lovees 120 
 
 CHAPTEE YII. 
 The Yicomte's Troubles 147 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 Less than a Squire 165 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 Monsieur Leon 182 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 The Feast for the Dead . . . . 201 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 ^Mademoiselle Pelicie's Husband . . . 233
 
 CONTEXTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 Eaoul's Distress 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 A Peudext Youxg Lady 274
 
 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 A YEBY S^ALL TOW]^'. 
 
 Ix the whole west of France there is no 
 
 prettier town than D . Lying rather 
 
 out of the way, it has as yet had but few 
 pretexts for '^ improving " itself, and in 
 many respects presents the same appearance 
 
 as it did some half a century ago. D 
 
 is nothing in particular ; not a fishing toT\Ti, 
 for the sea is too far off; nor a manufactui'- 
 ing town, for '' business " of that kind is ab- 
 
 YOL. I. B
 
 4. ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 sorbed by Cholet, -wliicli is some ten leagues 
 distant, and represents the manufacturing 
 interest. D is, if anything, an occa- 
 sional place of passage or rest for drovers, 
 who still find it quickest and cheapest to 
 drive their Choletais oxen from the banks of 
 the Levi^es to the more central towns on the 
 banks of the Loire, pending the establish- 
 ment of small local railway branches. No 
 
 railroad leads to D . If it did, old 
 
 Martin Prevost would not have been the 
 great ruler of that small town that he truly 
 was. 
 
 Martin Prevost was of Swiss extraction. 
 His grandfather had been valet de chambre, 
 steward, factotum, alter ego, to a famous 
 Yendean chief, — a proud rich noble of the 
 ancient regime, but one of the few who pre- 
 ferred the hard active life of a partisan to
 
 A VERY SMALL TOWN. ^ 
 
 anything Court favour could offer him, and 
 who was genuinely glad to exchange Ver- 
 sailles for the hazards and hardships of La 
 Chouannerie. The trading principle being 
 uppermost in the mind of the Helvetian, 
 the confidant of Monsieur le Marquis soon 
 became rich. It was said that he managed 
 to sell a good many of the necessaries of 
 existence to both sides at once, and that both 
 were his grateful customers. He was never 
 known to betray either, but merely got 
 out of each all he could. Monsieur le 
 Marquis died in exile, earning starvation 
 wages by the French lessons he gave in an 
 English seaport town, and his valet de 
 chambre died possessed of a house in 
 
 D , in which he had, at the time of the 
 
 Consulate, opened what Americans would 
 call a ^^store." His principle was one of
 
 4 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 beautiful simplicity. He bought everything 
 and sold everything ; striving only with de- 
 lightful single-mindedness never to realise 
 any profit under twenty per cent, upon 
 either operation. He married a wife who 
 was crooked and blind of one eye, but these 
 slight defects were fully compensated for to 
 liim by the dower she brought him, and 
 which he laid out so as to double it, — of 
 which fact she never had the smallest token 
 or proof. 
 
 His son Avas unworthy of his sire, and did 
 nothing to improve his position in life. The 
 father judged his offspring severely, but took 
 care to get him advantageously married, and 
 when he died, recommended him to the care 
 of his wife. 
 
 Prevost II. went through life and out of 
 itj unnoticed ; but did not dissipate his estate,
 
 A VERY SMALL TOWN. 5 
 
 SO that, at his death, in 1835, he left what 
 his father had left him, and what his wife's 
 dot had added to that, nntouched and entire 
 to his two sons. 
 
 In Martin Prevost, the yonnger of these 
 two sons, the spirit of the grandfather 
 burned strongly, and was intensified by that 
 atmosphere of barter which in France above 
 all conntries, is the very ^'over-soul" of 
 mankind in this nineteenth century. Martin 
 Prevost carried the destinies of his house to 
 a remarkable height, and at the time of 
 which we are writing he was vii^tually the 
 
 ruler of D and its population of 3,800 
 
 souls. 
 
 Martin Prevost was the money-lender of 
 the whole district, and as those who bor- 
 rowed rarely paid in cash, and as he never 
 lent save on unexceptional security, it is not
 
 b ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 difficult to calculate how from decade to 
 decade Martin's power and wealth increased. 
 Soon after his father's death he bought a 
 Charge de Notaire, which he kept for six or 
 seven years, and then sold to considerable 
 advantage ; for he had gained for this office 
 such repute that people of high standing 
 came to consult him, from distant towns 
 even, and his opinion and advice were worth 
 gold ! When Monsieur Martin Prevost sold 
 his fitude he called this proceeding retiring 
 from business. '' Je me retire des affaires," 
 said he ; but there were one or two sharp- 
 eyed individuals, and D numbered mar- 
 vellously few such, who opined that on the 
 contrary this was the very period when 
 Prevost' s business seriously began. By the 
 time he had been six or seven years a notary, 
 no family within twenty or thirty miles had
 
 A VERY SMALL TOWN. 7 
 
 a secret of which he was Tinpossessed ; and 
 when he delivered over the various and 
 voluminous documents of his office to his un- 
 suspecting successor, he carried away in his 
 prodigious memory the details of the finan- 
 cial complications of the entire neighbour- 
 hood. But old Prevost was a wise man, and 
 though his power was felt and acknow- 
 ledged, he never allowed it to be supposed 
 that he ever could possibly presume upon 
 it. He lived well, but modestly and econo- 
 mically, having but one servant, a woman 
 for whom he had the deepest respect, and 
 as outdoor servant, a man who was gar- 
 dener, labourer, groom, and commissionnaire 
 to Madame Jean. 
 
 It used to be said in and about D 
 
 that no one knew anything that was not 
 good, and that no one felt anything that
 
 8 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 was, touching Martin Prevost ; yet every one 
 applied to him, and every one, at some 
 moment or other of their lives, trusted 
 him. He had never married, but he had 
 adopted his nephew, and given the young 
 fellow an excellent education. Old Martin's 
 brother had turned out ill, — that is, un- 
 lucky, — and had died young in America, 
 whither he had emigrated, terribly in debt. 
 "What became of his wife, or who or what 
 
 she was, no one in D ever heard. 
 
 Some people said she had run away from 
 him ; but Martin had the boy sent to him, 
 when he was only six years old, had brought 
 him up since then, and, I repeat it, had 
 brought him up well. What created no 
 little astonishment was, that he had not 
 brought him up over strictly, but in the 
 way of liberty and money gave him to the
 
 A VERY SMALL TOWN. 9 
 
 full as much as other young men of his 
 station could boast of possessing. 
 
 Wednesday was market day in D , 
 
 and on a certain Wednesday, not quite two 
 years ago, a little group of two or three 
 women was gathered round the open door of 
 Martin Prevost's house talking with Ma- 
 dame Jean. There was the same character 
 of sharpness in each of those female faces, 
 but Madame Jean had an air of authority 
 which the others lacked, and the basket she 
 carried on her strong stout arm was half as 
 big and half as full again as any of the 
 other women's baskets. It was not much 
 past eight o'clock, and though the October 
 sun was warm, the air was still cool, and a 
 fresh but not unpleasant wind shook the 
 boughs of the lime-trees overhanging the 
 terrace of old Prevost's garden.
 
 10 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 '' Certainly poultry is out of all price," 
 cried bitterly a skinny, black-b3K)wed woman, 
 looking enviously at Madame Jean, and at a 
 pair of huge Cochin- Chinese legs that pro- 
 truded from her basket. ^^ We up at the 
 Mairie haven't gone out of beef and vege- 
 tables for I don't know how long ; — and 
 beef, up now at thh^teen sous, one franc six 
 a kilo, as they will call it ; — ^well ! I reckon 
 by pounds and sous, I can't take to their 
 new ways, though I do belong to the 
 Administration." At this the speaker drew 
 herself up with pride. 
 
 '' Yes," said Madame Jean, '' beef is dear, 
 and veal is bad, — all strings ; — and poultry 
 is dear, and everything is dear." 
 
 ^^But nothing is too dear for la maison 
 Pre vest," interrupted the purveyor of Mon- 
 sieur le Maire. ''Mere Jubine well knows
 
 A VERY S^IAIJL TOWX. 11 
 
 "vrhere she can place a fowl even for the sum 
 of thi'ee francs ten. — foiu' fi'ancs even, who 
 can tell? ** 
 
 '- Mere Jiibine owed it me ! -■ replied, with 
 
 (lictatcaial tone, Madame Jean. •• The last 
 I bcaight from her was an unsatisfactory 
 fowl, so I reckoned it her at only haK' price, 
 and toijk this tjne to make up. Oiu' young 
 man is not well just now. and wants light- 
 food, so I shall let him eat poultry for a few 
 days. Bless my soul ! it ain't such an extra 
 after all. TTith two pots au leu there's the 
 whole week ; reckon : — all depends on the 
 manao:ement. no extras are anv matter if 
 you are a menagere. and if you are not. why 
 you come to think bread itself an extra ; 
 but where are the menageres ? " Madame 
 Jean said this defiantly, and the other ma- 
 trons were cowed.
 
 12 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 ^' Is anything serious tlie matter with 
 Monsieur Eichard ? " asked the mildest 
 looking of the group in a propitiatory 
 manner. 
 
 '' Serious ? l^o ! " responded Madame 
 Jean, as though it would have been absurd 
 to suppose that anything serious could be 
 the matter in so prosperous a house as that 
 of Monsieur Prevost. '' Serious ? 'No ! 
 but you know he never was the strongest of 
 the strong ; he's not a Turk nor a weight- 
 thrower at the fair, and he's never quite got 
 over his attack of the lungs this winter ; 
 he's delicate, if you will, but care makes up 
 for everything, and he gets lots of it." 
 
 ^^ Why didn't you buy that hare of Mere 
 Lucas?" whined out the chief of the 
 mayor's kitchen. ^'I've heard say game 
 was good for im^alids."
 
 A VEKY SMALL TOWN. 13 
 
 *' Because I didn't choose," retorted 
 Madame Jean sharply. 
 
 '^ Oh ! " was the rejoinder. '•' Faites 
 excuse. I thought it might be because of 
 something else," and the woman looked 
 warlike. But war with Madame Jean 
 was not a thing to be dreamt of, as she 
 quickly showed. Tui-ning sharply round, 
 and resting the whole of her outspread 
 hand upon one end of her big basket, 
 which drove the other end of that well- 
 Med recipient so far up behind her shoulder 
 that the Cochin- Chinese legs seemed almost 
 sprouting from her back like cherubs' 
 wings — ''Madelon," said she, '^you mean 
 Prosper Morel. I know quite well what 
 you mean; but we know all about it as 
 well as you do, and we don't want Monsieur 
 le Maire or anybody else to inform us of
 
 14 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 anything. I had my thoughts about that 
 hare, if you must know ; that hare never 
 was shot, — that hare was caught, caught 
 mayhap on Monsieur Eiviere's land, there- 
 fore stolen. There ; call it by its name, 
 stolen ; a deal more likely stolen by Prosper 
 Morel than by [ any one else ; but what 
 then? prime, where's the proof? You 
 believe it ; the Maire believes it ; the 
 garde's certain sure of it ; but more than 
 all, I believe it ; but what then ? Prosper 
 has had his permit taken from him ; Mon- 
 sieur wouldn't help him to get it ; and what 
 then ? Suppose the garde catches him, and 
 draws up his proces-verbal, and he gets con- 
 demned and fined, and justice is satisfied, 
 and suppose Monsieur turns him out of his 
 hut up there in the forest, and gets another 
 woodcutter. Well, suppose all that, what
 
 A VERY SMALL TOWN. 15 
 
 then ? Who'll be shot in a by-path, or 
 have his throat cut in his back shop, or have 
 his house burnt over his head ? " The 
 women all looked aghast and nodded their 
 heads ominously, as though admitting that it 
 was but too true. 
 
 ^^ You fancy, do you," continued Madame 
 Jean, ''that that silent, sulky, hulking Bre- 
 ton would let the worst come to the worst 
 without having his revenge. Eut all the 
 same, Madelon : don't you imagine we don't 
 know as well as Monsieur le Maire what 
 
 goes on in D ; only I don't buy trapped 
 
 game. Monsieur Eichard's chasse suffices 
 us. We are regular people, and eat the 
 hares and partridges off our own stubble. 
 If Mere Lucas makes one franc fifty clear 
 profit out of a hare, she pays fifty centimes, 
 taking the risk. She's welcome to it, but I
 
 16 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 don't put the one franc fifty into her pocket, 
 not I ! '' 
 
 '' Monsieur le Cure's Lise does," observed 
 the mild-mannered woman. 
 
 ^' Oh ! Monsieur le Cure's Lise ! " snarled 
 Madelon in her most contemptuous tone, 
 and as though no proceeding could possibly 
 be too objectionable for Monsieur le Cure's 
 Lise. 
 
 ''Well! Monsieur le Cure's Lise?" re- 
 torted Madame Jean. '' She's a wise woman ; 
 she gets for two francs a hare worth four, 
 not to say five, if we were in carnival time, 
 and no harm done. Monsieur le Cure may 
 do what he likes." 
 
 '' There she goes across the street," re- 
 marked Madelon. 
 
 '' And Celeste from down at Yerancour's, 
 with her," added her soft spoken companion.
 
 A VERY SMALL TOWN. 17 
 
 A laugh, indulged in together, by 
 Madame Jean and Madelon, seemed to 
 establish peace between them. 
 
 " It would be a fine sight to see what she 
 has bought at market," sneered Madelon; 
 ^' two potatoes, thi-ee olives, and an onion, 
 maybe I They do say that on fast days 
 Celeste serves up fish a week old ! " 
 
 ^^ Fish ! " echoed Madame Jean; ^'fish 
 out of sea or river comes a deal too dear for 
 the Chateau ! " She laid a tremendously 
 pompous accent on the first syllable. ''I 
 was once inside their doors, and in going 
 away I had just to cross the dining-room as 
 they were coming in to dinner. If you'll 
 believe me, there was, besides a soup of 
 bread and water, nothing but lentils and a 
 red herring. But, Lord ! weren't they set 
 out in fine silver dishes ! It was the 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Wednesday of the quatre-temps de Sep- 
 tembre. I've wondered to myself ever 
 since then what it is they live upon ; for 
 the wind that blows, however healthy it 
 may be, won't keep body and sonl together 
 in thi^ee grown-np people." 
 
 " Live upon ? " exclaimed almost savagely 
 Madelon. "Why, upon their own impor- 
 tance ! " 
 
 '^Tobe sure," remarked the conciliatory 
 one of the group, "they do believe in them- 
 selves ! " 
 
 "Yes," muttered Madame Jean, "to 
 make up for nobody else's believing in 
 them." 
 
 "]S"ever mind," added Madelon, "let's 
 see what Celeste has got in the way of 
 flesh for these grandees, for it's not the 
 quatre-temps de Septembre now, and they
 
 A VERY SMALL TOWN. 19 
 
 must put something more than vanity into 
 their stomachs, all the same. Ce " 
 
 " Hush ! '' said Madame Jean, stopping 
 the loud appeal -which the other woman was 
 preparing to address to the two bonnes who 
 were at the farther side of the street. 
 ^^Hush! There's Monsieur le Yicomte 
 himself turning the corner do^vTi to the 
 left, and coming this way." 
 
 "Ugh!" grunted Madelon. "What's 
 he wanting up hereabouts ? I thought his 
 daily mass was hardly over by this time." 
 
 " He's coming here," said Madame Jean ; 
 and a moment later the person alluded to 
 came up from behind, divided the group of 
 women, touching his hat as he passed, and 
 saying " Pardon, mesdames ! " confronted 
 Madame Jean on the doorsteps on which she 
 was standing. The women nodded to each
 
 20 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 other and parted, leaving Madame Jean alone 
 on the threshold of the maison Prevost. 
 
 ^' Could I see Monsieur Prevost for a 
 moment ? " inquired the new comer, politely. 
 
 ^' Quite impossible at this hour," rejoined 
 Madame Jean after a most stately fashion. 
 ^^ Monsieur has not yet breakfasted. It 
 is not yet nine. Monsieur breakfasts as the 
 clock strikes ten, and Monsieur never sees 
 any one before breakfast. You have not 
 come by appointment ? " she asked. 
 
 ''No — not exactly — but " 
 
 '' Of course not," interrupted Madame 
 Jean. ''Monsieur would have informed 
 me." 
 
 " But my business is very pressing," 
 urged the petitioner, " and would not take 
 up more than a quarter of an hour." 
 
 But it was no use. Madame Jean was
 
 A VERY SMALL TOWN. 21 
 
 ^' in the exercise of her functions," and 
 any one who has ever had dealings with 
 them, knows in that particular state how 
 unmanageable is a Frenchman or a French- 
 woman. Madame Jean was not impolite; 
 she was impervious, opaque, not to be pene- 
 trated by an influence from without. He 
 who strove to propitiate her, had to bear 
 his ill-success complacently, — for fear of 
 worse, — and accept her permission to 
 come again at eleven o'clock. She had 
 the satisfaction of making things go 
 her own way without any extraordinary 
 effort ; and though it could not be objected 
 that she was rude, she contrived never once 
 to address her interlocutor as ^'Monsieur le 
 Yicomte."
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE MAEEIAGE PORTION. 
 
 Madame Jean had barely witnessed tlie 
 retreat of her enemy, for such it appeared 
 he was, however innocently, when she 
 became aware that her master was calling 
 her from within. She shut the house-door, 
 and, putting down her basket in the passage, 
 went up-stairs to a room on the first-floor, 
 whence the voice issued. Opening a door 
 to the right, she stood in Monsieur Prevost's 
 presence. 
 
 He was standing close to a large table
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 23 
 
 covered with account books and papers, and 
 he held an open letter in his hand. 
 
 Martin Prevost was about sixty-two or 
 three, and though he looked strong and 
 bien conserve, still he looked his age. 
 He was above the middle height, gaunt 
 rather than spare, with a bony frame, an 
 immense hook-nose, and two small, sharp 
 eyes, quite close together. There were 
 about him all the signs of power of an 
 inferior order ; power of plodding, power 
 of endurance, and capacity of privation, 
 and the unfailing marks of acquisitive- 
 ness, — ^the rapacious eye and hand. "Look 
 at that," he said, in an angry tone, as he 
 thrust into Madame Jean's fingers the open 
 letter he held in his own ; "the fellow has 
 just been here, and I have told him that 
 if he can't clear himself of these accusations
 
 24 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 he must go. I wash my hands of him. I'll 
 haye no quarrels with the Administration. 
 He shall be turned out." 
 
 Meanwhile Madame Jean read the letter, 
 which ran thus : — 
 
 ^' Sir AND HONOURED COLLEAGUE " (MoU- 
 
 sieur Prevost had been the mayor of D 
 
 three years before, and the present man 
 was his successor), — ^^ I think it right to 
 warn you of the irregularities of the man 
 named Prosper Morel, in your employ. 
 As you are aware, he has no permis de 
 chasse this season, but I have every reason 
 to believe he steals game in the night-time. 
 The garde, Francois Lejeune, is morally 
 convinced of having seen this individual 
 committing his malpractices, though he 
 has hitherto contrived to escape being taken
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 25 
 
 in flagi'ante delicto; and Monsieur Eiviere 
 has ali-eady twice complained of him to me 
 officially. As the man is employed by 
 you, and as nothing would give me greater 
 pain, sir and honoured colleague, than to 
 have to take any steps annoying to you, 
 I venture to beg that you will ad- 
 monish him and force him to renoimce 
 his malpractices, in default of which I 
 should be obliged to proceed with a 
 rigour I should deeply deplore, and set 
 the gendarmerie in action. 
 "■ I remain, &c., 
 
 "Sbion Collot, Mayor.''^ 
 
 When Madame Jean reached the word 
 gendarmerie, she for certain excellent 
 reasons which we shall know later, curled 
 her lip in disdain, and muttered something
 
 26 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 unintelligible, bnt which seemed to imply 
 that she knew better than to indulge in 
 the slightest alarm respecting the gallant 
 body of defenders of the state. 
 
 '' 'Now look you here, Sophie," said 
 Monsieur Prevost, when his prime-minister 
 had concluded her perusal of the adminis- 
 trative appeal, ^^ my mind is made up. 
 Prosper Morel goes about his business 
 at the end of the month. I'll have 
 nobody of his kind about me ; it com- 
 promises one's position. It's intolerable; 
 he shall leave at the end of the month." 
 
 Madame Jean shook her head. ^' He's 
 been here sixteen years," objected she. 
 
 ^^What does that matter?" retorted 
 her master. 
 
 ^' His wife was the little one's bonne." 
 ^^ That has nothing to do with it."
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 27 
 
 ^^ No ; — I know it hasn't," observed 
 the woman, " nothing at all ; — only she 
 saved his life when he had the typhus 
 fever, and lost her own by catching it." 
 
 ^^What the devil has that in common 
 with her husband?" growled Martin 
 Prevost. '^ The woman's dead." 
 
 ^^Yes; but how is the man to gain his 
 bread if he leaves here ? " persisted Madame 
 Jean. ^' He's at home a long way off, 
 down in Basse Bretagne, and he's got no 
 home at all when he gets there." 
 
 ^^He must beg," replied Martin Prevost. 
 
 "Begging's forbidden by law," an- 
 swered Madame Jean. '' He must steal or 
 6e must starve." 
 
 " Well, he must go, that's certain," re- 
 joined her master. 
 
 Madame Jean fixed a hard, bold look on
 
 2S ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 old Martin Prevost, and though the look was 
 both bold and hard, it was a far better one 
 than that which shot from his keen ferret 
 eyes, and he quailed before it. 
 
 " Prosper Morel is a dangerous man," said 
 she authoritatively. 
 
 " Bah ! " grumbled Monsieur Prevost ; 
 '' a man without a sou is never danger- 
 ous." 
 
 "You mistake," replied Madame Jean, 
 '^a man with ever so little money is not 
 dangerous, but a man with none at all is ; 
 and I tell you, beware of Prosper Morel; 
 don't east him off, give him another chance." 
 In everything Madame Jean seemed used to 
 have her own way. She apparently ruled 
 and governed, and when she retired from 
 her master's presence, it was settled that 
 Prosper Morel should be severely lectured
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 29 
 
 by both Monsieur Prevost and herself, but 
 that he should retain his office of bucheron, 
 and the abode it secured to him in the 
 forest, on condition of good behaviour in 
 future. 
 
 While this discussion was going on up- 
 stairs, another little scene, in immediate 
 connection with it, was being enacted on 
 the ground-floor. The window of a room 
 at the back of the house, looking over a 
 paved court, and beyond that to the garden, 
 was open, and seated at it was a young man, 
 in a well-padded arm-chair, listlessly and 
 lazily smoking a cigar. A shadow fell 
 across him, projected by the figure of a man 
 who passed in front of the open window, 
 and touched his cap as he did so. 
 
 " Good day, Prosper," said the young man 
 in an indolent tone of voice.
 
 30 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 '^ Salut, Monsieur Eichard," mumbled the 
 otlier, and went his way. 
 
 " Prosper," called the young man, '^ when 
 will you bring me down those rods ? The 
 weather isn't at all bad for fishing, but my 
 rods are all too short." 
 
 The man turned round, came back, and 
 stood right [in front of the window. He 
 was decidedly disagreeable to look at, slouch- 
 ing, ungainly, clumsily put together. You 
 could not help comparing him to those un- 
 finished animals which are shown to us as 
 nature's first efforts before the flood. He 
 did not look bad, but unpleasant, — an in- 
 complete product, with the mud and slime of 
 that jelly period sticking to his features and 
 limbs. 
 
 " I can't bring you the rods. Monsieur 
 Eichard," said he, in a thick, drawling voice.
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 31 
 
 '^ for I am going away, — going for ever. 
 Monsieur up there" — and he gave a jerk 
 with his thumb in the direction of the 
 first-floor — '^has turned me away." 
 
 " What for ? " inquired Monsieur Eichard. 
 
 The man scratched his head, and looked 
 more hopelessly stupid than before. '' Oh, 
 histoire de rien ! " he drawled out ; '^ histoire 
 de Monsieur le Maire." 
 
 "l^onsense, Prosper," argued the young 
 man, laying his cigar on the window-sill ; 
 "you can't go." 
 
 "I am going, Monsieur Eichard," he 
 
 rejoined; "but " and everything in him 
 
 seemed, as it were, to set at that moment ; 
 lips, eyebrows, and hands, stiffened into an 
 expression of brutish revengefulness that 
 was still more stupid than threatening. 
 Decidedly the ruling characteristic of the
 
 32 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 man was blockheadedness. I can find no 
 other term. 
 
 '^ Nonsense, Prosper ; liold your tongue ! " 
 rejoined Monsieur Eichard. ^'Come round 
 here into my room and tell me all about it. 
 I must set you right with my uncle." 
 
 The man did as he was bid, and slouch- 
 ingly skulked off to the back entrance. And 
 certainly Monsieur Eichard did look a likely 
 person to make peace between people. He 
 was so very blond and gentle-looking ; not 
 strong, decidedly, as Madame Jean had 
 stated of him, but with an air of good- 
 nature and delicate health that made you 
 pity him and account for the evident lazi- 
 ness — it was more than indolence — of his 
 nature. 
 
 As eleven o'clock was striking Monsieur 
 le Yicomte came, and claimed the audience
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 33 
 
 that had been promised him by Madame 
 Jean, who was graciously pleased herself to 
 introduce him into the same room on the 
 first-floor in which we have already been 
 made acquainted with the master of the 
 house. 
 
 This room was Martin Prevost's sanc- 
 tuary. In it were assembled the several 
 objects of his dearest care, — his correspon- 
 dence, his account-books, and his safe. That 
 same caisse de siu'cte was about the only 
 indication that Monsieur Prevost had ever 
 allowed himself to afford to the outer world 
 of his riches ; and, naturally, legends had 
 taken it for their basis in the little world of 
 
 D . It had come all the way fi'om 
 
 Paris, and fabulous sums were mentioned as 
 its price. This infinitely annoyed Martin 
 P revest, and if he could have kept his wealth 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 securely in his cellar, he would have done 
 so gladly. Of course his natural instinct, as 
 is that of his entire class, was to bury it, to 
 hide it, but education and the age having 
 left their impress on him, he resisted this 
 impulse ; and, sure enough, there in that 
 safe were all Martin Prevost's securities, 
 bonds, shares, obligations, — and cash. 
 
 Well ; his visitor entered, and sat down, 
 and having something really important to say, 
 began — as in that case people invariably do 
 — by speaking of something utterly unim- 
 portant, and irrelevant to the matter in 
 hand. 
 
 There they were, face to face ; the grand- 
 son of the Swiss valet de chambre and the 
 ^' son of the crusaders;" and, ma foil if 
 the truth must be told, there was very little 
 to choose between them as to mere external
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 35 
 
 aspect. Monsieur de Yerancour was not by 
 any means aristocratic looking ; not a bit 
 of a Francois Premier, or a Marecbal de 
 Eichelieu, or a Lauznn, or any other type of 
 the fiery grace and brilliant corruption of 
 the past ; — not an atom about him of the 
 pale, tall, worn-out, exquisite old gentleman 
 whom romanciers, as a rule, oppose to bull- 
 headed blown-out boursiers, as the true 
 representatives of an era you would fancy 
 they deplored; — not a sign of all this in 
 Monsieur le Yicomte. He was rather of the 
 bull-headed type himself, and instead of 
 having an aquiline nose, which, to be truth- 
 ful, Martin Prevost had, his nose was a 
 thick, stumpy nose ; the black hairs which 
 encircled his bald crown were bristles ; his 
 face was broad, and its colouring red-brown; 
 his figure was stout and not very tall ; and
 
 36 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 his hands were ugly, and the nails not clean. 
 His dress was slovenly, and he looked like a 
 man who used his limbs a good deal, and 
 lived much in the open air in all weathers. 
 His age was not much past fifty. 
 
 Between these two men, one made and 
 the other marred by '89, was there then any 
 difference at all ? More than you suppose, 
 but quite other than you think. For the 
 present, we will go no further than mere 
 manner. As they sat there opposite to each 
 other, Martin Prevost seemed to have in 
 many respects the advantage of the two, but 
 he lacked one thing which the Yicomte had, 
 and that one thing was ease. 
 
 After having exhausted the subject of 
 pears ; — old Prevost was a pear fancier, and 
 the orchard at the Chateau was supposed to 
 possess some wonderfully fine specimens of
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 37 
 
 almost extinct sorts ; — Monsieur de Yeran- 
 coiir suddenly plunged into the subject for 
 which he had so impatiently sought the 
 present interview. 
 
 "You are curious to know the business 
 which brings me to you to-day ? " said he 
 with a smile. Old Prevost bowed stiffly, as 
 though he wished to mark that he was not 
 curious at all. " Well, I have a great secret 
 to tell you, and I rely entirely on your dis- 
 cretion, for such things must not be talked 
 about. I am going to marry my eldest 
 daughter " 
 
 " To Monsieur de Champmorin," inter- 
 rupted old Prevost in a freezing tone. 
 
 The Yicomte was very near giving a 
 visible start, but did not do so. 
 
 "You really are a magician ! " exclaimed 
 he with a laugh, "but all the same I count
 
 38 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 on your discretion; these things must not 
 be talked about till they are absolutely 
 settled." 
 
 " And this is not absolutely settled," 
 added old Prevost, half interrogatively, and 
 fixing his two small keen eyes on his 
 visitor. 
 
 '' Well, — a marriage is only settled when 
 the bridal mass is chanted," replied the 
 Yicomte, evasively. 
 
 '^ Monsieur de Champmorin has thirty 
 thousand francs a year now," continued 
 Martin Prevost, not unloosing his piercing 
 gaze from his hearer's countenance. '' He 
 will have at his uncle's death a house in 
 Paris, in the neighbourhood of the General 
 Post Office, that will give him fifteen 
 thousand francs more, because that he will 
 divide with his sister ; the uncle leaves to
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 39 
 
 both alike ; but he will have his grand-aunt's 
 property all to himself at her death ; — she's 
 near eighty now; — and Saulnois, if it was only 
 decently attended to, ought to yield five-and- 
 twenty thousand francs a year net. So you 
 see thirty and fifteen are forty-five ; and say 
 only twenty, — because of course he'll farm 
 Saulnois ill ! — that makes sixty-five thou- 
 sand francs a year, fii'st and last. Monsieur 
 de Champmorin is out and out the best parti 
 in the department. Have you any objection 
 to make to him?" Martin Prevost asked 
 this question, fixing his eyes still more like 
 screws into the featui-es of the Yicomte's 
 face; and then, before giving him time to 
 answer, '' I know it has been said he drinks, 
 and is violent, and ill brought up, and lives 
 only with his farm servants," he went on ; 
 — '^but that would hardly be objected to.
 
 40 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Mademoiselle Felicie is very clever, and so 
 saintly a person that she would perhaps win 
 liim into better conduct ; — and then, in your 
 society man and wife have so little need to 
 be together ! If les convenances are satis- 
 fied, that is the essential point, — the rest is 
 only of consequence in our class, in little 
 humble households; — but do tell me; you 
 surely have no objections to make to Mon- 
 sieur de Champmorin?" 
 
 No ! the truth had to come out, whole 
 and entire. Monsieur de Yerancour had no 
 objection whatever to make to •Monsieur de 
 Champmorin ; but Monsieur de Champmorin 
 made one small requirement of him, — 
 namely, that that most accomplished and 
 most saintly person. Mademoiselle Felicie, 
 should have a dot of some sort or kind. It 
 had to come out, and it did come out, drawn
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 41 
 
 bit by bit, but wholly and to the last morsel, 
 by the pressure of Martin Pre vest's able and 
 pitiless hand. 
 
 "• So you would mortgage Les Grandes 
 Bruyeres ; would you ? " he abruptly asked 
 when he knew all he wanted to know. 
 " Well, Monsieui' le Yicomte, you are best 
 able to say what income that valuable 
 property yields you ;" and Monsieur Prevost 
 commented upon these words with a smile 
 imperceptibly ironical. 
 
 " Les Grandes Bruyeres was the most 
 valuable portion of my great-grandfather's 
 whole estate in this part of the country," 
 replied quietly Monsieur de Yerancour. 
 
 "Was, — yes, granted; but what is it 
 now ? What does it yield you ? " 
 
 '' Oh, me ? That is altogether another 
 thing. I am too poor to farm such a
 
 42 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 property as it ought to be farmed ; but you 
 know what the land at Les Grandes 
 Bruyeres is worth, my dear Monsieur 
 Prevost ;" and in his turn the Yicomte fixed 
 his eyes upon his interlocutor in a way that 
 the latter did not find agreeable. The real 
 truth of the matter was this : the bride- 
 groom-elect of Mademoiselle Felicie had, 
 after much discussion with his notary, and 
 as much more between this functionary and 
 the future father-in-law, agreed to limit his 
 pretentions to the sum of sixty thousand 
 francs, moyennant quoi, he was content to 
 take Mademoiselle Felicie '' for better, for 
 worse." It was a miserably small sum, — 
 not three thousand pounds of English 
 money, — and any one might see how, with 
 his ^^ hopes and expectations " and thirty 
 thousand francs a year in hand, Monsieur de
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 43 
 
 Champmorin was letting himself go dirt- 
 cheap at such a price. It was a splendid 
 '^ placement " for Mademoiselle Felicie ; 
 every atom of advantage was on her side. 
 Words failed wherewith to paint the 
 generous disinterestedness of Monsieur de 
 Champmorin ; but then, as his notary re- 
 marked, this was a ^4ove match." Such 
 was the excuse urged, when this bride- 
 groom, in such high financial condition, 
 consented to be purchased for the paltry 
 sum of sixty thousand francs ! And the 
 public were expected to adopt his view of 
 the transaction, and call it a "mariage 
 d' amour ! " But unluckily Monsieur de 
 Yerancour had not the sixty thousand francs 
 to give ! Do what he would, he could not 
 scrape them together. This, however, led 
 merely to prolonged discussion and to the ac-
 
 44 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 ceptance of another form of payment by the 
 Champmorin notary. Instead of the capital 
 paid down, M. de Yerancour was to pay the 
 annual interest upon it to his daughter, who 
 was to receive three thousand francs a year, 
 £120, paid quarterly, — £30 every three 
 months ! Well, it was a cheap price for a 
 husband, if you come to think of it ! But 
 now came the difficulty ; how to raise the 
 money I — Martin Prevost ! There was the 
 solution ! And so Monsieur le Yicomte came 
 to Martin Prevost, and had to tell him all, 
 and leave not. one little corner of his do- 
 mestic embarrassments, however humiliating 
 they might be, unrevealed. It had to be 
 done, or all chance of placing Mademoiselle 
 Felicie was at an end. At the end of half 
 an hour, then, Martin Prevost held the des- 
 tinies of the Yerancour family in his hands.
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 45 
 
 The point at issue was this: — the property 
 of Les Grandes Bniyeres was worth one 
 hundred and fifty thousand francs any day 
 to a man less poor than the Yicomte; — 
 worth that to be sold, and worth that for the 
 income it would yield to any one capable of 
 farming it properly. But to M. de Yeran- 
 cour it was worth nothing, or worse than 
 nothing ; and his was the position of so many 
 thousand needy landholders in France, to 
 whom their land is a dead weight instead of 
 a source of gain. 
 
 The long and the short of it was, that 
 Martin Prevost, refusing inflexibly to lend 
 one farthing upon any security whatever, 
 and all idea of a mortgage being at an end, 
 condescended at last to promise to purchase 
 Les Grandes Bruyeres for the sum of 
 seventy thousand francs, the " odd ten "
 
 46 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 being destined to the trousseau and in- 
 evitable marriage expenses. But how they 
 had haggled, before they got to this conclu- 
 sion, they alone can understand who have 
 had the misfortune to be mixed up in France 
 with '' marrying and giving in marriage." 
 
 '' But why not at once give Mademoiselle 
 Felicie her dot of sixty thousand francs, 
 since I bu.y Les Grandes Bruyeres, and you 
 get the money?" inquired old Prevost. 
 
 '^ Because with half the sum I can quin- 
 tuple it in a year," replied the Yicomte 
 sagaciously. 
 
 " Ah I " drawled out old Prevost ; '' you 
 can quintuple it, can you ? Well, I wish I 
 knew that secret ! But you gentlefolks have 
 a vivacity of intelligence that is surprising 
 sometimes to us mere plodders and hard- 
 working bourgeois."
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 47 
 
 ^' I must not tell you yet," resumed Mon- 
 sieiu' de Yerancour, with an air of diplo- 
 matic importance, ''but there is an affair 
 about to be launched that will make million- 
 naires of all those who are connected with it ; 
 I have friends at the head of it, and — " he 
 stopped suddenly, as though on the brink of 
 violating some awful secret ; " and when 
 the time comes," he resumed, " I will try to 
 interest you in it too." 
 
 '' Serviteur ; " answered old Prevost, with 
 a profound bow. " I am infinitely obliged." 
 
 Just as Monsieur de Yerancour got up 
 to go, the money-lender spoke again. 
 " There seems to me to be one little 
 difficulty about your arrangements, Monsieui* 
 le .Yicomte," murmured Martin Prevost 
 blandly; ''you will pay to Madame de 
 Champmorin the yearly sum of three thou-
 
 48 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 sand francs, but when you come to marry 
 Mademoiselle Genevieve you will have to 
 do precisely the same thing. She can force 
 you to do it by law. What will you dispose 
 of then ? I may be dead by that time, and 
 you may perhaps not find any one so anxious 
 to do you a service." He called the opera- 
 tion he had just been engaged upon by this 
 name ! 
 
 Monsieur de Yerancour turned round, 
 and with a broad frank smile, " Yevette ! " 
 echoed he ; ^' oh ! Yevette will never marry. 
 Yevette will go into a convent at her 
 majority. It will be impossible to prevent 
 her ; and if she should change her mind, 
 why, I shall by that time be able to give 
 her such a dot as will enable her to marry 
 a duke and a peer." 
 
 " Well, by that time I shall probably be
 
 THE MARRIAGE PORTION. 49 
 
 dead," again repeated old Prevost, following 
 his visitor to the door of the room ; '^ but 
 don't forget Mademoiselle Yevette. She is 
 a very charming young lady, and the law will 
 force you to give precisely the same advan- 
 tages to the two sisters." 
 
 ^Tien Monsieur le Yicomte de Yerancour 
 was in the street, and trudging home as fast 
 as he could, in order to write by post time 
 to the Champmorin notary that all was 
 made smooth now for the '^placing" of his 
 daughter Felicie in her most romantic ''love 
 match," he never once asked himself what 
 impelled old Martin Pre vest to take such a 
 lively interest in the destiny of his daughter 
 Yevette. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE SISTERS. 
 
 The Chateau, as it was termed^ more often 
 derisively than otherwise, had really once 
 upon a time been the seignorial residence of 
 
 D J but the ancestors of the Yeran- 
 
 coTir family were not its possessors then. It 
 had come to them by marriage. Somewhere 
 about the end of the sixteenth century a 
 daughter of the house of Beauvoisin, the 
 chief of which was the then chatelain and 
 
 lord of D , had been given in marriage 
 
 by Henry lY. to the son of a recently en- 
 nobled echevin of Angers, whose riches,
 
 THE SISTERS. 51 
 
 acquired no one precisely knew how, were 
 regarded by the practical monarch as a suffi- 
 cient compensation for want of birth. Both 
 sides — Beauvoisins as well as Yerancours 
 — ^were Protestants, but after that historical 
 mass to which the Bearnois so promptly 
 made up his mind as the price for the Cro^ai 
 of France, Yerancours and Beauvoisins, and 
 the greater part of their families, went all in 
 a heap together back again into the vener- 
 able bosom of Mother Church. Of the old 
 Beauvoisin race there were soon none left. 
 They had dated from before the Crusades, and 
 had never been anything but warriors, who, 
 being inapt at learning any useful art or 
 trade, had been absorbed by those wlu> 
 could. It was an act of grace and honesty 
 on the part of the Yerancour people that 
 they did not assume the name of the extinct 

 
 62 ALL FOR GHEED. 
 
 family, but they assumed a vast deal more 
 than its pride, and a more over-bearing set 
 never were known. Their own name, their 
 patronymic, dating from the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, was Saunier ; which made it probable 
 that some ancestor of theirs had originally 
 dug or traded in salt from the salt-marshes of 
 Brittany ; but of this name, which, asso- 
 ciated with that of Yerancour, they had 
 borne under the Yalois kings, all trace was 
 rubbed out even in their own memories. 
 They were ^^ sons of crusaders " to all in- 
 tents and purposes, had grown prejudiced 
 precisely in the inverse ratio to their power, 
 and were landed in this hard high-pressure 
 nineteenth century of ours with all the at- 
 tributes and incapacities belonging to races 
 whose raison d'etre is no more. 
 
 There was an enormous difference between
 
 THE SISTERS. 53 
 
 these last descendants of the Sauniers de 
 Verancour and their o^TD. great grandfathers 
 of the Court of Versailles. These people 
 believed in themselves, whilst the others 
 made believe to do so. The wealthy 
 ^'ennoblis" of the times of Lonis XI Y. 
 and Louis XY. shared with a large number 
 of grand seigneurs the consciousness of the 
 surprise their own fathers would have felt 
 at seeing the grandeur they had achieved."* 
 Whereas after the destroying angel of '89 
 had jumbled the old and the new into one 
 uniform mass, lea^dng no particular sign to 
 any individual victim, all came together at the 
 resurrection of 1815, — above all, too, after 
 
 * The Due de Gesvres (Potier), for instance, who upon 
 one occasion at Court, addressed thus one of his col- 
 leagues : — " M. le Duel what would our fathers in 
 heaven say, if they could see us where we are ? "
 
 54 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 the grand tragi-comedy of the Empire, — as 
 equal. From the equality of suffering they 
 inferred the equality of caste, and swamping 
 any minor differences, agreed to set them- 
 selves apart from the rest of their fellows. 
 
 To this plan the smallest provincial 
 families, totally oblivious of their origin, 
 adhered with marvellous tenacity, and what 
 is more marvellous still, the rest of the 
 world did its best to take them at their 
 word. The priests honoured them, society 
 tempted them, the really illustrious houses 
 of the land intermarried with them, all 
 governments coquetted with them, the 
 peasantry sneered at them, and the bour- 
 geoisie abhorred them, as if they sprang 
 indisputably from Brahma's eyebrow or 
 Jupiter's thigh. Whatever might be the 
 purity or impurity of the blood in their
 
 THE SISTERS. 55 
 
 veins, they fully enjoyed the advantages 
 and disadvantages of the position they 
 attributed to themselves, and in many 
 instances gave extraordinary examples of 
 self-renunciation and of sacrifice to what 
 they termed the respect for their names. 
 Our friend, the worthy Yicomte de Yeran- 
 coiu', was a fine specimen of his kind, of 
 what he called his ^^ order." He really 
 was allied to whatever was noblest, not 
 only in his department, but as far away 
 as that magnificent temple whereof they of 
 the Parisian Faubourg St. Germain are the 
 high priests. He was very poor, had been 
 obliged to educate poorly, and had con- 
 demned to many privations, his two 
 daughters, whom he dearly loved; but he 
 looked upon his poverty as a distinction, 
 and thought it was his duty to behave as
 
 56 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 he did, and tliat it was incumbeiit upon him 
 at any cost to be what he called ^Hrue to 
 his name." 
 
 The chateau at D might, ages ago, 
 
 have been an agreeable abode, when its 
 possessors had wealth sufficient to procure 
 what were the relative comforts and luxuries 
 of the period, but it was a miserable place 
 for two young women to inhabit in our day. 
 Built, as are often baronial castles in the 
 wxst of France, considerably below the 
 village or to\vTi dependent upon it in days 
 of yore, its fii'st unavoidable evil was damp- 
 ness, and want of air on all sides save one. 
 It was decidedly unwholesome ; — ^no one 
 denied that. Then, although it was not 
 large of its kind, it was much too large for 
 its inhabitants, and they had to huddle 
 themselves into holes and corners, where
 
 THE SISTERS. 0< 
 
 the torn and soiled fumitm-e that had 
 escaped the outrages of the past could be 
 ^tui-ned to the best use. Women, and more 
 than any other, French women, can contrive 
 to make something out of nothing, and by 
 the time the two Mesdemoiselles de Yeran- 
 cour had been six months home fi'om theii' 
 convent at Poitiers, they really had con- 
 verted the set of rooms appropriated to 
 themselves and theii' father on the ground- 
 Hoor into a presentable suite of chambers 
 for a family of reduced means. There was 
 enough of discomfort, as we English people 
 misiht think, — vou habitually entered the 
 house thi'ough the kitchen, and in the 
 Yieomte's study you would be suddenly 
 reminded by the fall of something soft and 
 plimip upon the floor of the presence of 
 fi'ogs ; but resignation was the virtue of this
 
 58 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 family, and it was thought the right thing 
 
 to submit to everything for the sake of 
 
 what it might puzzle you or me to specify 
 distinctly, but they knew, and were satisfied 
 with their own magnanimity. 
 
 I have said that there was one side of the 
 chateau which was open to the winds of 
 heaven, and on that side a tolerably broad 
 terrace, planted with acacias, lime and nut 
 trees, delightfully cool and shady in summer, 
 was the open-air boudoir of the two sisters, 
 Felicie and Genevieve, or Yevette, as she 
 was by abbreviation usually called. This 
 had originally formed part of the castle 
 ramparts, and had been one of the outworks 
 meant to defend the town and fortress of 
 
 D against any inroad on the part of the 
 
 Eretons. If you crossed over the broad 
 stone parapet on one side, you could see
 
 THE SISTERS. 59 
 
 down straight into a well-kept lane which 
 led round the castle premises np to the 
 town, and branched off about half a league 
 lower down from the high road to Cholet. 
 
 It was a bright beautiful October after- 
 noon, a few days after the Yicomte's visit 
 to Martin Prevost. The two sisters were 
 sitting at the stone table at the end of the 
 terrace. Baskets fall of work and working 
 materials were before them. The trees over- 
 head were rich in their russet clothing, there 
 was not a breath of wind stirring, and the 
 warm soft sunlight flooded the meadows and 
 pasture lands that spread out in front, and 
 beyond the limit of the chateau's present 
 domains. 
 
 ^^ Is that the Angelus already?" asked 
 Felicie, listening to the bell of the parish 
 church of D ringing out six o'clock.
 
 60 ALL FOR GKEED. 
 
 '' Is Monsieur le Cure coming to supper to- 
 night?" 
 
 '' I think not," was the reply. 
 
 In the provinces, and where the woman- 
 kind of such families as these come together, 
 it is impossible that a quarter of an houi* 
 should elapse without mention being made 
 of a cure. 
 
 ^^Then suppose we look at the Monde 
 Illustre," observed Felicie, drawing from 
 the bottom of the large work-basket, where 
 they lay hidden, two or three back numbers 
 of an illustrated journal which a cousin, 
 living at Tours, a lady of a worldly turn of 
 mind, was in the habit of sending now and 
 then to the two girls. " What is the 
 matter, Vevette; what are you dreaming 
 of?" she added, looking at her sister, who, 
 with her work laid down upon her knee.
 
 THE SISTERS. 61 
 
 was apparently gazing at vacancy, whilst 
 the tears were gathering in her eyes. 
 
 " I was thinking of la mere Marie-Claire," 
 said Yevette gently ; '^ the sound of the 
 Angelns suddenly reminded me of her, and 
 of our convent days." 
 
 ^' La mere Marie-Claire was so devotedly 
 fond of you, that it is no wonder you loved 
 her, and regret her now she's dead," re- 
 joined Felicie, with rather a sententious air ; 
 " but, for a well-born woman, I must say, 
 Vevette, that a worse example can hardly be 
 conceived than the one she gave." 
 
 ^^Do you really thinly that, sister?" in- 
 quired the younger girl, timidly adding with 
 a sigh : " Poor dear, sweet mere Marie- 
 Claire ! how lovely she was ! and how like 
 an angel she looked in the last few months 
 of her life ! "
 
 62 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 ^' Yevette ! " retorted the elder sister, 
 with all the sternness so handsome a 
 ^' saint'' could command; ^' pray do not 
 misapply terms. Mere Marie-Claire, who, 
 I grieve to say, was distantly related to 
 mamma, may have been a person to be 
 pitied, and we will hope she is forgiven. 
 Monsieur le Cure says it is allowable to 
 pray for her. But she was assuredly no 
 angel, and a more rebellious woman cannot 
 be imagined. Why, she actually died of it ! 
 What made her take the veil, pray, if not 
 that she preferred being a nun to marrying 
 the man her parents had chosen for her?" 
 
 '■'• But she said she could not love him," 
 argued humbly Yevette. 
 
 Felicie curled her lips proudly. ''What 
 has a well-born, piously brought up girl to 
 do with such reasoning as that?" she ex-
 
 THE SISTERS. 63 
 
 claimed. '^ The real fact is even worse than 
 what I said just now ; the real fact is, that 
 the misguided woman took the veil because 
 she could not marry the man she pretended 
 she loved." 
 
 "But he was her equal. I believe he 
 Avas her own cousin," urged Yevette, blush- 
 ing deeply at her audacity. 
 
 "Equal, maybe," rejoined Felicie, "but 
 they had no money between them, and the 
 parents would not hear of it. No ! mere 
 Marie-Claire I hope repented of her errors, 
 but in plain terms it cannot be denied that 
 she positively died for love." 
 
 "And — really, Felicie," mui'mured her 
 sister tremblingly, after a pause of a few 
 seconds, " do you think that it is so very 
 dreadful a crime ? " 
 
 "Think?" retorted the other. "Oh,
 
 64 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Yevette ! mere Marie-Claire committed a 
 greater sin than I could have thought her 
 capable of, if in her long talks with you 
 she put such improper ideas into your head. 
 I hope you have confessed all this to Mon- 
 sieur le Cure." 
 
 '^ I will," promised poor Yeyette, turning 
 her head ; '' but I don't know that I ever 
 thought of it all so much before. I don't 
 know why I suddenly seemed to remember 
 poor mere Marie-Claire so well. It must 
 have been the Angelus. Do you remember 
 the sound of our bell at the Visitation ? " 
 
 ^''No indeed, my dear," answered Felicie 
 with a smile, and unfolding her newspapers. 
 '^ Just look," she cried ; '^ here is the whole 
 account of the Fetes of the 15th August." 
 
 '^ But that's six weeks ago," objected 
 Yevette.
 
 THE SISTERS. 65 
 
 " ^0 matter ; such, things are always fresh. 
 There was a grand ball at the Hotel de 
 Yille, and here is a long description of all 
 the dresses." And Felicie's eye ran eagerly 
 do^\TL the colunm, and she occasionally 
 stopped to chronicle her admiration of some 
 special toilet. '' Oh, this must have been 
 lovely ! " she all at once exclaimed ; 
 ^' listen ! pink crape Trith water-lilies, and 
 the coiffui^e, water-lilies with pearls plaited 
 into the haii*. I wonder who wore that ? 
 I wonder if she was beautifid ? ^Tien I 
 am married, I shall enjoy a few weeks in 
 Paris in the winter " 
 
 '' Felicie I " 
 
 " "WTiy not ? It is the right thing to do. 
 Of coui'se I should not go to the Hotel de 
 Tille balls, — though I belieye now, there 
 are some people who do ; but our relations 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 and Monsieur de Champmorin's too, in the 
 Faubourg St. Germain, give magnificent 
 fetes." 
 
 '^And you will go to Paris, sister ? " 
 asked Yevette. '' I should be frightened 
 out of my senses if I only set my foot in 
 one of its streets. Why, it is worse than 
 Babylon ! " 
 
 '' Possibly," replied the other demurely ; 
 '^but when a well-born woman is married 
 she owes a great deal to her name and 
 position in the world, and to her husband 
 and his family. She must make sacrifices 
 every day. All Monsieur de Champmorin's 
 family live more or less in Paris, and I 
 believe his uncle wishes him to be a Deputy. 
 I must think of him, and of the future 
 position of our children." 
 
 It was not in Vevette's gentle heart to
 
 THE SISTERS. 67 
 
 retaliate, but in her heart she questioned 
 whether Felicie ought not also to betake 
 herself to confession, and submit to Mon- 
 sieur le Cure her strange mental preoccupa- 
 tions touching pink crape dresses, and head- 
 dresses composed of water-lilies and pearls 
 interwoven in the hair. Yevette rose from 
 her seat, and leant over the wall of the old 
 rampart. 
 
 '^ Good evening, mademoiselle," drawled 
 out a languid voice from the road beneath. 
 
 '^Felicie," said Yevette, turning round, 
 " it is Monsieur Eichard. He has got little 
 Chariot behind him with a basket full of 
 fish." 
 
 Felicie joined her sister, and with con- 
 descending grace looked down on Monsieur 
 Richard. He lifted up the green leaves in 
 the basket, and discovered a fine fat carp.
 
 68 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 " That is a good big iisli," he remarked 
 carelessly ; ^^ the rest are not worth much ;" 
 and then deferentially raising his broad- 
 brimmed felt hat, made his request. 
 ^' Would it be too great presumption," 
 he asked, '' if I requested the favour of 
 presenting my personal respects to Monsieur 
 le Yicomte some day soon, before leaving 
 D ?" 
 
 ^^Dearme!" Monsieur Eichard, rejoined 
 
 Felicie, ^^are you about to leave D ? 
 
 Has Monsieur votre oncle obtained some 
 Government situation for you?" 
 
 ^' Not that," was the answer, '' but my 
 uncle is kind enough to think that at three - 
 and-twenty it is well to see something of 
 the world, and I am going to Paris for 
 some months." 
 
 ^' To Paris!" ejaculated both the sisters
 
 THE SISTERS. 69 
 
 at once. ^'Will you not be cbeadfuUy lonely 
 witliout any friends or acquaintances? In 
 such a place as Paris, what will you do 
 with yourself?" 
 
 ^'"Well," retorted the young man, "I do 
 not think anybody with plenty of money to 
 spend is likely to remain long lonely in Paris, 
 and my uncle has been very generous to me." 
 
 "Indeed," said Felicie. "Well, I am 
 sure I wish you success, Monsieur Eichard. 
 Any day before breakfast you can come to 
 the Chateau. I daresay papa will receive 
 you. Bon soir." 
 
 The day was waning, and the two girls 
 gathered up their work, Yevette carrying 
 the basket. 
 
 " The idea of that old Prevost sending his 
 nephew to Paris!" remarked Felicie. "I 
 wonder what will become of him!"
 
 70 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 ^' But you know, don't you, that he is to 
 be enormously rich?" remarked Yevette. 
 
 ^^ What they call rich," added scornfully 
 her sister. 
 
 ''What any one would call rich," urged 
 Yevette. ''Why, Felicie, they say old 
 Prevost has above a hundred thousand 
 francs a year, and he will leave every penny 
 to Monsieur Eichard. You'll see he'll marry 
 one of the daughters of those nouveaux 
 
 riches, and buy all D one of these fine 
 
 days." 
 
 " A hundred thousand francs a year," 
 repeated musingly Felicie, as they prepared 
 to enter the house. " He'll give his wife 
 diamonds and run horses at the races." 
 And then she sighed, and said devoutly, 
 " What a horrible state of things ! "
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 MARTIN provost's AMBITION. 
 
 A WEEK passed by. It was the 12th of 
 October. Old Prevost had called his nephew 
 into his room, and there the two sat to- 
 gether, on either side of the long bureau- 
 table, while the legendary '' caisse de 
 surete " raised its cumbrous shape between 
 the two windows, right in front of Monsieui- 
 Richard, whilst his uncle sat with his back 
 towards it. 
 
 There was no resemblance between them ; 
 — not one single trait in common had they.
 
 72 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 The uncle's hard, sharp, vulture-like features 
 were not reproduced in the rather weak 
 mould in which those of the nephew had 
 been cast. The old man's thin lips were 
 very different from the full, red, sensual 
 mouth of the young man opposite to him, 
 and his piercing eyes utterly outshone 
 Monsieur Eichard's mild blue ones, with 
 their rather vague, wandering glances. One 
 thing was a pity ; Monsieur Eichard's eye- 
 lids were delicate, and every now and then 
 got inflamed, which took from the pleasant- 
 ness of his aspect, for he really was other- 
 wise what may be termed good-looking. 
 There was, if you will, a certain dulness in 
 his air ; I won't say that he looked exactly 
 stupid, but there was a total absence of light 
 about him. You would swear that if he 
 had been in the place of any of his elders
 
 MARTIN PREVOST's AMBITIO^^ 73 
 
 of the Prevost stock, he would never have 
 known how to make the fortunes they had 
 made. Xo ; stiff, sharp old Martin Prevost, 
 as he sat there, straight-backed and all of a 
 piece, was the e^ddent superior of that fair- 
 haired, round-faced, delicate young man. 
 But then this is a degenerate age, and the 
 money having been made by wiser, stronger 
 men, it was enough that the mediocre but 
 truly amiable inheritor of it all should 
 make a good use of it ; — and that Monsieur 
 Eichard undoubtedly would do. 
 
 '^ 'Now that I have given you most of the 
 necessary details about your stay in Paris, 
 and the principal friends you will find 
 there," said old Prevost, continuing a con- 
 versation begun some half an hour before, 
 '^ it is necessary that I should inform you 
 of what my plans for your future are."
 
 74 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 '^ Any that you form I shall follow/' re- 
 plied the nephew with a bow. 
 
 '^ Yes," answered the old man as blandly 
 as it lay in his nature to do. ^^ I have never 
 had any complaint to make of you, Eichard ; 
 you have always been obedient and well- 
 conducted; and though you have no turn for 
 affairs, I consider you thoroughly capable 
 of doing credit to the position I have 
 achieved. You start from where I leave 
 off, Eichard. I remain a plodding plebeian. 
 You must be a gentleman. You must com- 
 plete yourself by marriage. I have told you 
 ever since you were a boy of fifteen to 
 look forward to that. I have told you to 
 familiarise yourself with the people down 
 at the Chateau as much as you could. Well ! 
 why do you shake your head ?" 
 
 '^ Because, dear uncle, I have tried, but
 
 MARTIN PREVOST S AMBITION. t -) 
 
 they won't let me ! They are familiar 
 enough mth me, for that matter, but it is 
 the familiarity that is used towards an in- 
 ferior." 
 
 ^^ They don't know how rich you are," 
 interrupted old Preyost. 
 
 Monsieur Eichard shook his head again. 
 ^' To say the whole truth," he added, '' the 
 Yicomte treats me like a lacquey." 
 
 ^^Bah!" broke out old Preyost with a 
 fierce bitterness of contempt, " they would 
 marry a lacquey if he only brought them 
 money enough. I tell you, nephew, you 
 shall be Monsieur le Yicomte's son-in-law. 
 I am in treaty now for the domain of 
 Chateaubreyille down in the Mayenne, and 
 before the year is out you shall be Monsieur 
 Preyost de Chateaubreyille, and your noble 
 spouse," — this was said with a sneer, —
 
 76 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 " shall do the honours of your house to the 
 whole department. I do not destine you to 
 be a Deputy, Eichard. I mean to keep that 
 for myself," and the old man looked as he 
 spoke capable of sterner efforts than are 
 required to compel the attention of the 
 Corps Legislatif. '^ I will be the Deputy, 
 you shall be of the Conseil-General. Who 
 knows ? President of it, perhaps. Money 
 will do anything ! And I will carry 
 through the direct line of railway from 
 Paris. When once we've got that, — besides 
 the new coal-fields, — it shall be my fault if 
 any of the new men in Paris, — were it even 
 the Pereires themselves, — are richer than 
 me. But the first thing is your marriage." 
 Monsieur Eichard' s eyes had been actu- 
 ally flashing light all this while, as he 
 listened to his uncle's Avords. He knew
 
 old Prevost's indisputable capacity, and 
 knew also how small men had made enor- 
 mous fortunes ; and at the concluding 
 phrase he blushed all over with delight. 
 
 "If it were possible, dear uncle," he 
 exclaimed, ''it would indeed be a brilliant 
 dream for " 
 
 '' Probably," interrupted the old man, 
 " you've gone and formed some inclination, 
 as people call it, for that scornful princess ; 
 that is of no sort of consequence ;" and he 
 waved his hand, as if setting aside all such 
 nonsense; "but there is no harm in it. ^Tiat 
 is important is that I hold those Yeran- 
 cours in my hand, and that on the day after 
 to-mori'ow, on Thursday, at two o'clock, I 
 shall put my signatiu^e side by side with 
 Monsieui^ le Yicomte's to an act that will 
 make him my dependent. He has sold me
 
 78 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Les Grandes Eruyeres. I have had all the 
 acts and contracts made out. I pay him 
 the money at two o'clock on Thursday 
 next; but an hour after that I wouldn't 
 advise Monsieur le Yicomte to play me any 
 tricks, because I can destroy with one word 
 the entire combination for which he wants 
 the cash." 
 
 " You know I never question you, uncle," 
 said Monsieur Richard; but he looked all 
 interrogation. 
 
 ''No; you are exceedingly discreet," re- 
 plied old Prevost, "and as the whole con- 
 cerns you, I will trust you. — The Yicomte 
 must have sixty thousand francs, or Champ- 
 morin won't marry the girl. I give him 
 seventy thousand, and the marriage takes 
 place. But by this proceeding he defrauds 
 the other sister, for he has literally not a
 
 MARTIN PREVOST S AMBITION. 79 
 
 farthing left to give her. The chateau won't 
 sell for twenty thousand francs ; and if I 
 show the real state of the case to Champ- 
 morin's notary, the business is done. Cliamp- 
 morin will withdi'aw, for he would have to 
 refund, — besides all the eclat of the matter ; 
 and then Monsieur le Yicomte would have 
 both his daughters upon his hands, and be 
 minus the only bit of tolerable property he 
 had to dispose of." 
 
 '^ But, uncle ! " stammered the young 
 man, upon whose countenance there had 
 gathered all this while a cloud of anxiety 
 that his interlocutor did not notice. ''Uncle, 
 I knew nothing of all this I "Which of the 
 sisters is going to be married ?" 
 
 ''Which?" echoed old Prevost, impa- 
 tiently. " W^hy Mademoiselle Felicie, to 
 be sure : who else should it be ? With
 
 80 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 wh-om are we concerned, if not with Ye- 
 vette?" 
 
 His nephew gasped, and, for a moment or 
 two, could not speak. 
 
 ^^ Why, what ails the boy?" exclaimed 
 old Prevost, transfixing the unhappy Mon- 
 sieur Eichard with a look that was full of 
 the bitterest contempt. " You haven't been 
 offering your hand, have you, to Monsieur 
 de Champmorin's charming bride; to that 
 
 ?" Here he stopped short, and no 
 
 epithet came, but the expression of his 
 countenance was not complimentary to 
 Mademoiselle Felicie. " Eichard ! " he 
 resumed, in a very calm tone, '' you will 
 do well to listen to what I say : I have 
 decided that Mademoiselle Genevieve shall 
 be your wife, and on that condition I have 
 told you what a position you shall enjoy ;
 
 81 
 
 but if any obstacle to that arrangement were 
 to come from you, I would immediatelj'- 
 alter my will, and instead of being a rich, 
 man and a personnage one of these days, you 
 should find yourself all at once in the posi- 
 tion of my grandfather when he began life. 
 I would not leave you one centime." 
 
 Poor Monsieur Eichard was pale as death, 
 and seemed as though he were internally 
 convulsed. Externally he trembled a little. 
 
 ^' Uncle," said he in an unsteady voice, 
 '^ you never told me that you preferred one 
 of the sisters to the other, and " 
 
 " Told you !" echoed old Prevost ; " why 
 should I go explaining my intentions to 
 you, before the time was come to act?" 
 
 " But, dear uncle," pleaded Monsieur 
 Eichard, " it was not my fault if " 
 
 ^' Who cares whether it is your fault or 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 not?" retorted Martin Prevost. ^' One 
 thing be well assured of, that while I live 
 Mademoiselle Felicie shall never be my 
 niece. You idiot!" he added; ''it is so 
 like the wretched weaklings of your kind, 
 the miserable products of this sensual age, 
 to be attracted by a girl of that description. 
 Why, you would not have been her husband 
 half a year before you would be coming 
 here to me whining and crying to be de- 
 livered from her ! I know that young lady, 
 though she doesn't yet know herself. I 
 knew her grandmother. Monsieur le Yi- 
 comte's blessed mother, and that girl is 
 every inch Madame Dorothee ; — la belle 
 Madame Dorothee ! Yes, handsome she 
 was, God knows, and some few are living 
 who remember what she was besides ; — all 
 of which didn't prevent her going to mass
 
 MARTIN PREVOST'S AMBITION. 83 
 
 every day of her life, and to confession twice 
 a month, — for she was by way of being a 
 devote, too, — though devotion was easier to 
 manage thirty or forty years ago than it 
 is now, since the reign of the Jesuits in 
 France." 
 
 "But, uncle," ventured to say the un- 
 happy youth, '' Mademoiselle Felicie is not 
 yet nineteen, and has only been a year out 
 of a convent. She cannot yet " 
 
 "Nonsense!" interrupted old Prevost ; 
 " hold your tongue, Eichard, about the 
 whole thing. It shall not be. And now, 
 as this topic must never be reverted to, I 
 will just once for all speak my mind to you, 
 and you will reflect upon what I say, and 
 see if you can agree. You are like all the 
 men of your time. They call themselves 
 men." This was uttered with an inde-
 
 84 ALL FOR GRLED. 
 
 scribable sneer. '' You are dishonest." 
 The nephew started. ^' I don't mean that 
 you would steal ; but you won't pay. You 
 want to enjoy, to enjoy always, without 
 doing anything else, and you want to escape 
 paying for it ; that's what I call dishonest, 
 and that is the characteristic of you all. 
 The men of my time worked and paid its 
 full price for whatever they achieved. Look 
 at me ; I've worked for forty years, — 
 worked hard, and plodded not only through • 
 work, but through privations and through 
 humiliations. Do you suppose I should 
 ever have been as wealthy as I am if they 
 who have helped to enrich me had dreamt 
 I was ambitious ? 'No I I have been 
 scrupulously honest according to the present 
 value of the word, but I have profited by the 
 weaknesses of my neighbours, and I should
 
 MARTIN PREVOST'S AMBITION. 86 
 
 never have known them if I had been 
 thought of as anything save ' le bon homme 
 Prevost.' "Wealth ! power even ! they don't 
 niind that, so long as they fancy you can 
 never use it to trouble their vanity. I 
 ambitious ! Bless my soul ! I was only a 
 money-getting machine, a humble, narrow- 
 minded bourgeois, who knew nothing of 
 politics, but only put sou upon sou and 
 helped his betters out of difficulties by lend- 
 ing them the sums they couldn't get else- 
 where ! I, ^ le bon homme Prevost ! ' Lord 
 bless you, I didn't exist ! But now, my 
 time is come, too, and I will have my en- 
 joyment, for I have paid for it." 
 
 ^' And no one will be so rejoiced at your 
 success as I shall be," put in the nephew 
 cautiously. 
 
 " I am only sixty -two," continued Martin
 
 86 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Prevost, careless of the interruption. ^^ I 
 have the strength of unspent years in store, 
 for I have capitalised my health, as well 
 as my money. I have fifteen years before 
 me, during which I will have my enjoy- 
 ment. I shall remain, as I told you, a 
 plodding plebeian, but I will plod to some 
 pui'pose, and on a higher field than I have 
 had yet. There is the good of the empire ; 
 the forces from below come into play now, 
 and the forces from above are annihilated, 
 though they don't see it. They get the 
 titles, and crosses, and Chamberlain's keys, 
 and their vanity is content ; they have 
 nothing else; but we of the lower ranks 
 get the power. !N'ow you see, Eichard, I 
 will make a gentleman of you, and you 
 shall represent something. But I will 
 rule your fortunes, and will not have for
 
 MARTIN PREVOST S AMBITION. 87 
 
 my niece a woman who would try to rule 
 me." 
 
 Monsieur Eichard permitted himself a 
 vehement gesture of denegation. 
 
 ^^ Stuff!" said the uncle, sternly. '' Ma- 
 demoiselle Felicie Avas just the sort of girl 
 to seize hold of a weak and vicious imagina- 
 tion. Don't be offended, Eichard ! The 
 imaginations of the young men of your age 
 now-a-days are all vicious, because the men 
 are all weak ; — all half-natures ! But that 
 is no matter. Mademoiselle Felicie will 
 be Madame de Champmorin in six weeks, 
 and when I have paid the money down 
 for Les Grandes Bruyeres, the Yicomte, in 
 spite of his pride, will not refuse me Made- 
 moiselle Yevette, who is really an excellent 
 girl, and manageable. When you come 
 back from Paris, Monsieur Prevost de
 
 88 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Chateaubreville, you shall marry her, and 
 when you are somewhat over forty you 
 will inherit all my wealth, be a personnage, 
 I tell you again, and marry your OAvn 
 daughters to penniless marquises or even 
 dukes, if you choose." 
 
 '^ Oh ! uncle, uncle !" sighed his nephew. 
 
 The countenance of old Prevost under- 
 went a slight change. Looking steadfastly 
 at Monsieur Eichard, — looking at him, as 
 it were, through and through, he said, — 
 ^^I'U tell you what you think would be 
 just and proper. You think that because 
 you are young you ought to be able to 
 satisfy all your desires; you would like to 
 have the position I can give you, and the 
 woman you choose to fancy, besides ; you 
 would like my earnings and your own will. 
 ^N'o, no, Eichard, you must pay too ; you
 
 MARTIN PREVOST's AMBITION. 89 
 
 must pay by submission and by patience ! 
 After to-morrow Mademoiselle Felicie will 
 be out of your reach. You must make up 
 your mind to it. You will have the estate 
 of Chateaubreville, and a Demoiselle de 
 Verancoiu- for the mother of youi' children, 
 who will be very rich ; and what have you 
 done for all that?" and he took in the 
 whole of his nephew, as it were, at one 
 glance, and said, scornfully, "ISTothing!" 
 
 Poor Monsieur EichardI He shi'unk 
 together, and attempted no further resist- 
 ance. It might be very painful, but, as 
 Mephisto says, '^He was neither the first, 
 nor would he be the last." This same con- 
 versation has been gone through, or will be 
 gone through, by more or less every son 
 and every nephew in France ; therefore the 
 hardship is after all a common one.
 
 90 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 When the conversation was ended, poor 
 Monsieur Eichard begged his nncle's pardon 
 for having dreamt of thwarting him, and 
 promised he would do his best to get over 
 his disappointment and accept his uncle's 
 plans for him with fitting readiness and 
 gratitude. Poor young man ! The traces 
 of the struggle were visible on his face, 
 by its increased pallor, by the redness of 
 his eyelids, and by a circle of dark blue 
 that had hollowed itself under his eyes. 
 
 All was over. Monsieur Eichard was to 
 leave for Paris in a week, and next Thurs- 
 day Mademoiselle Felicie was to be in 
 possession of a dot that would enable her 
 to become Madame de Champmorin. 
 
 But Destiny sometimes foils even the 
 best calculators. When Thursday came, 
 old Martin Prevost was lying at the foot of
 
 MARTIN PREVOST's MIBITION. 91 
 
 his great big iron safe, his face upon the 
 floor, his two arms stretched out before 
 him, and the back of his head beaten in 
 by blows. The master of the strong box 
 was murdered, the strong box was broken 
 open, and all the ready money in bank 
 notes and cash had disappeared. There 
 had been what we call burglary, and what 
 the French law terms " vol avec effi.'action."
 
 CHAPTEE Y. 
 
 POOE MONSIEUR RICHARD's RICHES. 
 
 The effect produced by such a tragedy in 
 
 a little place like D , does not require 
 
 to be described. For twenty miles round it 
 spread its terror ; but in the centre of action 
 itself, it exercised a vivifying power. The 
 
 collective life of D was quintupled. 
 
 Every one's mind was busy upon the same 
 subject, and at the same time. If a con- 
 versation began on any other topic, it was 
 sure, before five minutes were over, to find 
 its way round to the assassination of Martin
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHARD'S RICHES. 93 
 
 Prevost ; and, whether they who conversed 
 were peasants or shopkeepers, you would 
 have been equally astonished, had you over- 
 heard them, to note the extraordinary apti- 
 tude of all for the discharge of duties 
 appertaining to the police. Each man, — 
 and, for that matter, each woman, too, — had 
 his or her notion about the murderer, and 
 was the inventor of a trap in which the 
 criminal must be infallibly caught, and 
 which, on the part of the said inventor, 
 proved a wiliness, a depth of calculation, 
 and an instinct of the manners and ways of 
 crime, that so far as the moral condition of 
 this rural population was concerned, was 
 not pleasant. The officers of justice only 
 seemed gifted with true administrative dul- 
 ness, and the process of "instruction," as 
 it is called, elicited, as it di'agged on its
 
 04 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 pedantic course, remarks not flattering to 
 judicial sharpness from the public. For the 
 public knew everything, however secret ; 
 and, above all, whatever was surrounded 
 with unusual precautions as to secrecy. 
 The greffier of the Juge de Paix talked to 
 his wife ; the Maire talked to his married 
 daughter ; the huissier du tribunal confided 
 in his bonne ; the doctor who had examined 
 the body transmitted his impressions to all 
 his patients ; and all the devotes discussed 
 the matter with Monsieur le Cure and his 
 Yicaire. Then the beadle, who was married 
 to Madelon, the Maire' s cook, and the 
 sacristan, whose wife collected the money 
 for the chairs during divine service, and was 
 charwoman twice a week at the private 
 establishment of the principal grocer, — all 
 these served as so many channels of com-
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHARD' S RICHES. 95 
 
 munication, and from conduit to (conduit 
 conveyed the whole cuiTent of information 
 from its head source in the cabinet of the 
 Juge d' Instruction down to the kitchen of 
 the humblest menagere. But the worst of 
 all was the brigadier de gendarmerie. This 
 official, by name Frederick Herrenschmidt, 
 a gigantic Alsatian, was the devoted and 
 pretty well avowed suitor of Madame Jean ; 
 and from " Monsieur Frederi," as she styled 
 him, awful as he might be to the general 
 
 public of D , she contrived to extract 
 
 the minutest details. Madame Jean was 
 reputed a rich woman, and being the widow 
 of a lazy drunkard, to whom she was 
 married twenty-five years back, and whose 
 backslidings she had brooded over during a 
 twenty years' widowhood, she had never 
 brought herself to trust sufficiently any
 
 96 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 '' man of woman born," to resign to him the 
 disposal of her little fortune. "■ Sophie," as 
 her dead master (but he alone) called her, 
 had been the presiding genius of the 
 Prevost household for a quarter of a cen- 
 tury, and had never cheated old Martin of 
 one sou. She made his interest hers, be- 
 cause he made hers his ; and by dint of 
 placing, as he had done, here a hundred 
 francs, and there a hundred francs of her 
 savings during this long space of time, 
 Madame Jean was possessed of somewhere 
 about the sum of twenty thousand francs, 
 and this wealth of hers was the cause that, 
 court her as he might, she could not make 
 up her mind to marry the gendarme. 
 Madame Jean was a fine bold specimen 
 of a strong-nerved French female of forty- 
 five ; but though her vanity was well
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHARD's RICHES. 97 
 
 developed, her caution and covetousness 
 overtopped it. She liked to overawe the 
 
 wives and maidens of D as the sharer 
 
 of the military authority of the place, and 
 she not only tolerated, but exacted the 
 utmost homage of Monsieur Frederi ; but 
 to take him, for better for worse, was 
 what she could not resolve to do, for she 
 had a shrewd notion that however much a 
 union with this stalwart son of Mars might 
 be the better for her, it would probably be 
 the worse for her money. So Madame Jean, 
 who had no human being to leave her riches 
 to, and who never spent anything, but went 
 on saving, refused to become Madame Her- 
 renschmidt, but reigned supreme over the 
 soul of the brigadier, and was possessed 
 of all the knowledge he had no business to 
 impart. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Whatever her other faults, Madame Jean 
 had all the helpfulness of a Frenchwoman, 
 and, had it not been for her care and 
 activity and sense, poor Monsieur Eichard 
 would have died, or gone mad, from the 
 effect of his uncle's sudden and terrible 
 death. Eichard Prevost was no hero, — 
 that the reader scarcely requires to be told, 
 — and since it was proved to him that 
 the house he inhabited had been broken 
 into, that an assassin had actually passed 
 before the door of the room in which he 
 slept, in order to creep up the stairs and 
 enter his uticle's room immediately over his 
 head, the unfortunate young man seemed 
 possessed by the idea that the same thing 
 might happen again any day, and that the 
 next victim would inevitably be himself. 
 
 ^^ You don't expect me to come and sleep
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHARD'S RICHKS. 09 
 
 in your room, do you," cried Madame Jean, 
 hoping to ronse him by indignation, "as 
 Prosper' s wife used to do when you were a 
 Httle child?" 
 
 " Certainly not, my dear Madame Jean ; 
 but I cannot help thinking that it would be 
 a proper precaution if the brigadier were to 
 sleep in the house." 
 
 At this Madame Jean drew herself up, as 
 though she had been abeady the gendarme's 
 lawful spouse, and told Monsieur Eichard 
 that he was ignorant of the stern obligations 
 of le devoii' militaire ! 
 
 " Nicolas can sleep in the passage," sug- 
 gested she. Nicolas was the out-door man. 
 
 " Nicolas ? " was the distrustful reply. 
 
 '^Well, you don't think he would let 
 himself be killed and carried away without 
 making a noise, do you ? "
 
 100 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 But Monsieur Eichard shook his head 
 and seemed to incline towards a totally 
 different kind of alarm, at which Madame 
 Jean exclaimed — '' For shame ! it is un- 
 christianlike and unlawful to be suspecting 
 everybody in that way. Why, Monsieur 
 Eichard, there's no end to that kind of 
 thing ! You'll be suspecting me, next ! 
 Poor old Prosper ! — though I never liked 
 him with his nasty underhand sulky ways — 
 still, I do feel for him now." 
 
 ^^So do I," rejoined Eichard ; ^' but you 
 cannot say I have done or said anything to 
 incriminate him; for, strange to say, from 
 the very first, something seemed to tell me 
 that the man was not guilty." 
 
 ^' And I believe you are quite right. 
 Monsieur Eichard." And, coming nearer to 
 him, and speaking cautiously, '' I happen to
 
 POOR IklONSlEUR RICHARD'S RICHES. 101 
 
 know," added Madame Jean, '^ that there is 
 not so much as the shadow of a proof; — 
 nay, more — there's no ground on which you 
 can rest even a suspicion touching Prosper 
 Morel. I have no business to go revealing 
 all this ; but I do know it, and I go out of 
 my direct duty to tell it you because youi* 
 nerves are all jarred and out of order by this 
 dreadful event, and it may comfort you to 
 know that you have not had an assassin 
 going about the house. You might get into 
 a way of suspecting everybody. Your 
 nerves are terribly shattered." 
 
 " Yes, they are ; you are right there ; but 
 surely there has been enough to shake the 
 nerves of a stronger man than me; and 
 alas! I never was sti'ong; but I am glad 
 about poor old Prosper ; as you say, he is 
 not a pleasant person ; but to be accused of
 
 102 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 such a heinous crime ! Brrrr ! " and he 
 shuddered all over, '' that must be fearful. 
 Poor man ! we must try and make it up to 
 him somehow." 
 
 As the reader will have guessed, the first 
 direction taken by the suspicions of justice 
 was towards Prosper Morel. The man's 
 character, the circumstance of the complaint 
 made against him a week before by the 
 Maire and taken up so vigorously by his 
 employer that his dismissal had been 
 decided upon by the latter, — all this natu- 
 rally militated against the woodcutter, and 
 before the day of the mui-der was ended a 
 mandat d'amener had been made out, and 
 the gendarmes had arrested Prosper. They 
 found him at his work, a good way out in 
 the forest, and his behaviour at once intro- 
 duced into Monsieur Frederics mind certain
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHAED's RICHES. 103 
 
 doubts of his culpability. It was eyening 
 when they discoyered him, sitting astride 
 upon a newly-felled tree, whose last 
 branches he was leisurely lopping off, whilst 
 he droned out a gloomy Breton cantique to 
 the Holy Virgin. He was just finishing his 
 day's work, and preparing to go home to his 
 hut. When he perceiyed the gendarmes 
 before him he saluted them ciyilly, and was 
 about to gather up his tools. They seized 
 him, before explaining to him why ; but 
 when the explanation came he was stupefied, 
 not alarmed. The brigadier was an old 
 hand, and had experience in criminals, and 
 he felt instinctiyely that the bucheron was 
 not one. The man was stolidly unconscious, 
 and his complete ignorance of what had 
 passed was eyident and undeniable. I^Teyer- 
 theless, he was immediately imprisoned,
 
 104 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 preventively, severely treated, harassed and 
 worried in every possible way, examined 
 and cross-examined, and the palpable proofs 
 of his innocence, which seemed to increase 
 almost hourly, were received with regret by 
 his pursuers — but they were received. 
 Eeyond presumption, nothing pointed at 
 Prosper in the details of the crime, — except 
 that it must have been committed by some 
 one who was intimately acquainted with old 
 Prevost's habits, and with the ways of his 
 house. 
 
 The mode of the assassination was toler- 
 ably clear. The victim must have been 
 standing in front of his safe when the blow 
 was dealt. The blow was dealt from behind, 
 and with extraordinary coolness and cer- 
 tainty and force. Of the three medical men 
 who were called in to visit the corpse, all
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICITARD's RICHES. 105 
 
 were of the same opinion, — ^namely, that the 
 first blow had suspended life, and that when 
 the others were given, they were dealt 
 merely to make assurance doubly sure. 
 There was comparatively little blood, and 
 what there was had flowed downwards upon 
 the floor, after the murdered man had fallen. 
 IS'one had spurted out, and there were no 
 stains on any article of furniture. 
 
 Now, as to the time at which the act was 
 committed, that was also easy to determine ; 
 it must have been between the hours of six 
 and ten in the morning. Old Prevost was 
 a perfectly wound-up machine as to his 
 habits, and never deviated from the mono- 
 tonous regularity he had marked out for 
 himself. Summer and winter, he always 
 rose at five. At six he sat down to his 
 bureau, and busied himself with accounts
 
 106 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 and calculations till eight. At eight he 
 sometimes took a stroll in the garden, or 
 even a short walk out of doors, but as often 
 he remained in liis own room. Till ten 
 o'clock began striking it was not necessary 
 that any one should be acquainted with the 
 whereabouts of Martin Prevost; but when 
 the tenth stroke had struck from a dusty, 
 wheezy old clock in the passage, instantly 
 the voice of Madame Jean was to be heard 
 calling out in a loud tone, " Monsieur, the 
 breakfast is served." 
 
 Now, when, on that fatal Thursday, 
 Madame Jean's voice had sent forth its 
 regular call, nothing stirred. Madame 
 Jean's temper was at once irritated by this 
 piece of unpunctuality, and after three 
 minutes had elapsed she repeated the 
 summons. Still no answer. Madame Jean
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHARD's RICHES. 107 
 
 ascended tlie stairs, angrily opened the 
 door of her master's room, and saw the 
 sight we haye described in our last chapter. 
 Her screams attracted Monsieur Eichard, 
 who was in attendance in the dining parlour, 
 awaiting his uncle's presence. The poor 
 young man, whose nervous system was less 
 robust than Madame Jean's, was so over- 
 come by the ghastly scene, that he fainted 
 dead away, and Madame Jean had to raise 
 him as well as she could, and busy herself 
 with recalling him to his senses. Before 
 this was quite accomplished, she had opened 
 a window, called IS'icolas up from the stable- 
 door in the yard below where he was attend- 
 ing to the old mare, and despatched him 
 for the Juge de Paix and the Maire, and 
 the doctor, and the all-important brigadier. 
 As to the unhappy Monsieur Eichard,
 
 108 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 between sobbings, and spasms, and swoons, 
 it was long past noon before any rational 
 testimony could be extracted from him. 
 
 What was qnickly enough realised was 
 this small number of facts ; — Martin Prevost 
 had been assassinated after he was dressed, 
 and had begun his daily occupations, con- 
 sequently, between the hours of six and 
 ten. He had been struck from behind by 
 a heavy blunt instrument, no trace whereof 
 could be found, and the blow had been 
 dealt with such force that the probability 
 was that the assassin was a man under 
 middle age. 
 
 He had been murdered by some one 
 entering the house from without, for the 
 mode of entrance was discovered almost 
 directly. At the end of the passage which 
 divided the house, and ran from the street-
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHARD's RICHES. 109 
 
 door to the yard-door, there was a small 
 room, used for putting away everything in 
 general ; and from old boots and dirty 
 linen on the floor, to fresh-made preserves 
 put to set in their pots on the shelves, 
 there was a little of everything in this 
 chambre de debarras. It had one window 
 opening into the yard, and a door opening 
 into the passage. This door was seldom 
 shut, and the window was never open. But 
 a pane of glass had been taken out, through 
 which a man's hand and arm could be 
 introduced, and the window had been 
 opened, for it was left open, and what 
 was more, the iron bar and hasp, rusty, 
 and liable to creak if suddenly turned, were 
 rubbed all over with some filthy grease, 
 found to be borrowed from pots, kept by 
 Nicolas in his tool-house for greasing cart-
 
 110 ALL FOR GKEED. 
 
 wheels. Tkrough that window, then, the 
 assassin had entered, and passing through 
 the door into the passage, he had mounted 
 the stairs up to Monsieur Prevost's room. 
 
 The reason of the crime was at once 
 evident; it lay in the desire to rob. But 
 the safe had not been broken into, as was 
 at first supposed. The safe had been 
 opened, and probably by old Prevost him- 
 self. 
 
 But then, the ingress of the assassin 
 accounted for, how about his egress ? 
 Every fact successively discovered, pointed 
 to the precise moment of the crime as 
 somewhat before seven, for Mcolas had 
 been ordered, the night before, by Martin 
 Prevost himself, to be at the post-office 
 by seven, punctually, to post some business 
 letters, and thus gain several hours by
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHARD's RICHES- 111 
 
 taking aclYantage of what was called the 
 night post, instead of waiting for the day 
 postj which only went out at thi'ee. He 
 had gone out at half-past six, and was 
 found not to have retui'ned much before 
 eight. Madame Jean had gone, as she 
 frequently did, to six o'clock mass, and, 
 as she also frequently did, had passed from 
 the church into the sacristy, and had a bout 
 of conversation with the Yicaire, and she 
 was certain of having returned shortly after 
 half-past seven. 
 
 In one hour, then, between half-past six 
 and half-past seven, had the deed been 
 done, for the house was deserted then, and 
 young Monsieur Eichard fast asleep, for 
 he slept late at all times, and, especially 
 since his illness, he scarcely ever woke 
 before half-past eight or nine.
 
 112 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 But next came the question of escape. 
 How, at that hour, had the murderer 
 escaped? The court-yard, being paved, 
 yielded no trace of a footmark, but in the 
 garden beyond there were some traces of 
 a boot or shoe very different from any that 
 could be matched by the foot of anybody 
 in or around the house. These traces were 
 lost at a hedge, then found again in a field 
 beyond, then, utterly lost on the baulks of 
 the river close to the Cholet high road. 
 
 Nothing in all this, as the reader will 
 see, squared the least with the notion of 
 Prosper Morel as the murderer. Still the 
 fact remained of his master having turned 
 him off, and of his having been heard to 
 thi-eaten his master. In this, however, 
 Monsieur Eichard was at once his best and 
 worst witness ; for, though he could not
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHARD's RICHES. 113 
 
 deny the threat made by Prosper in his 
 presence, yet, aided by Madame Jean, he 
 had been the means of bringing him back 
 into his uncle's service, if not favour ; and 
 Madame Jean deposed that Prosper' s grati- 
 tude to all, and, above all, to his master, 
 for giving him another chance, was loud, 
 deep, and sincere. So said Monsieiu^ le 
 Cure, who had been instructed to admonish 
 Prosper, and who had been, he said, edified 
 by the man's behaviom* on that occasion. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this. Prosper Morel 
 was kept preventively in prison, and having 
 no other presumable culprit under its claw, 
 French law gave itself its habitual delight 
 in torturing, as much as possible, the one 
 it had caught. However, even French law 
 has a limit to its harshness and narrow- 
 mindedness, and without one single shadow 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 of a proof, Prosper' s detention could not 
 last. The man's behaviour in prison was 
 irreproachable. He was mostly silent, and 
 absorbed in the study of a well-thumbed 
 book of prayers. When not silent, he 
 either sang his Breton cantiques or prayed 
 aloud for the soul of his murdered master, 
 ^one of his guardians liked him, but there 
 were not two opinions about his innocence. 
 Besides, to hi§ credit be it spoken, Monsieur 
 Eichard, so soon as the first shattering effect 
 of the crime had a little worn off, did every- 
 thing in his power to come to the bucheron's 
 aid ; and when each succeeding examination 
 by the Juge d' Instruction brought forth 
 the increased certainty of the crime having 
 been committed by some one from without, 
 whose identity could not by any means be 
 brought to tally with that of the wood-
 
 115 
 
 cutter, why, the woodcutter had to be 
 released. So one fine day old Prosper went 
 back to his hut, and recommenced his avo- 
 cations. But so repellent was the man's 
 nature, that the having been a victim to 
 a false accusation did not make him inte- 
 resting. His innocence was proved beyond 
 all doubt, yet people shunned him as before, 
 and he led a solitary life up in his woods. 
 
 The sum of ready money stolen was 
 found, as nearly as any retrospective calcu- 
 lation could be made, to amount to about 
 fifteen thousand francs — five thousand and 
 odd hundreds in gold and silver, and the 
 rest in notes. The numbers of all the notes 
 had not apparently been taken, although in 
 a little side drawer of Martin Prevost's 
 bureau-table was found, with the date of 
 8th October written on it, a slip of paper
 
 116 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 on which ivere marked down the numbers 
 of three 1,000-franc notes and of two 500- 
 franc ones. Of course the necessary mea- 
 sures were immediately taken to stop these 
 notes, but of the others no trace could be 
 obtained. 
 
 Two weeks passed oyer, and certainly no 
 effort was spared. Officials came from 
 neighbouring towns, and the Prefet of the 
 chef-lieu du departement wrote to Paris 
 
 and came himself to D , and a great stir 
 
 was made ; but the mystery never allowed 
 one corner of its veil to be lifted. There 
 were examples of such mysteries in the 
 judicial history of Prance, and the Prevost 
 murder was destined to be a fresh one added 
 to the list. 
 
 The person who did really create a lively 
 and sincere interest everywhere, was poor
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHARD'S RICHES. 117 
 
 Monsieur Eichard. For many miles round 
 he vas talked of and lamented over ; and 
 particularly when it was known how very 
 rich he was, his neighbours fell into the 
 habit of calling him, quite affectionately, 
 *^ ce pauvre Monsieur Eichard." 
 
 Of a truth, when old Prevost's affairs 
 came to be looked into, it was a matter for 
 universal surprise to see how rich he had 
 become. He had, for the last twenty or 
 thirty years, conducted his ffuancial business 
 through men who did not know or com- 
 municate with each other. But at his death 
 the accounts of all were forthcoming, and 
 the Cholet notary and a Paris notary, a 
 Paris stockbroker and a Paris banker, all 
 produced their books, and old Prevost was 
 found to be possessed of double and treble 
 the property, in various securities, that had
 
 118 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 ('ver been supposed. Between land and 
 floating investments, his fortune amounted 
 to near upon three millions five hundred 
 thousand francs ! Bundles of railway obli- 
 gations there were, for instance, on such 
 lines as the Orleans and St. Germain, which 
 had never been touched since their creation, 
 and which had more than doubled. 
 
 Poor Monsieur Eichard ! It certainly- 
 diminished no one's interest in him when 
 
 the notary at D produced Martin 
 
 Pre vest's will, by which, subject only to 
 one or two small charges, — such as a pro- 
 vision for Madame Jean, who did not need 
 it ! — he left everything he possessed to his 
 nephew. Eichard Prevost's income was not 
 far under one hundred and seventy thousand 
 fi'ancs a year ! 
 
 '•^ Indeed, sir," said the notary at D ,
 
 POOR MONSIEUR RICHARD's RICHES. 119 
 
 '' your poor uncle was more attached to you 
 than any one knows besides myself." 
 
 " And even you do not know what I lose 
 in losing him," said the young man. And 
 his last interview with his uncle seemed to 
 have so deeply impressed him as to have 
 almost cured him of his admiration for 
 Mademoiselle Felicie.
 
 CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 THE LOVERS. 
 
 If the reader has not forgotten Monsieur le 
 Yicomte's application to Martin Prevost 
 touching the mortgage or sale of Les 
 Grandes Bruyeres, he will readily under- 
 stand the singular embarrassment in which 
 Monsieur le Yicomte found himself placed 
 when, instead of a living money-lender he 
 suddenly confronted the corpse of a mur- 
 dered man. Things had reached a point 
 when any retrograde steps would be likely 
 to provoke a " scandal," as provincial news-
 
 THE LOVERS. 121 
 
 hawkers term it ; and were Felicie's mar- 
 riage with. Monsieur de Champmoiin to be 
 definitively broken off, she might at once 
 resign herself to the blessings of spinster- 
 hood, for she had few or no ^' extraordinary 
 resources," as Finance Ministers, in the face 
 of a deficit, term it, to fall back upon. 
 Felicie had got just now her one chance in 
 hand. She would hardly get another. 
 How should she ? She could not be taken 
 about to watering-places, — there was no 
 money for that sort of thing, — and she 
 could not even achieve a visit to Paris ; for, 
 besides the pecuniary question, she had no 
 relation there who would take notice of her 
 unmarried, or help her to get a husband ! 
 1^0 ; if any unlucky circumstance prevented 
 Mademoiselle Felicie from becoming Madame 
 de Champmorin, she would simply fall back
 
 122 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 upon her father's hands, or she would have to 
 make a mesalliance, and even of that — fright- 
 ful as it was ! — what likelihood was there in 
 
 such an out-of-the-way place as D ? 
 
 It was altogether a dismal look-out, and 
 such Monsieur le Yicomte felt it to be. Of 
 course a man, even so hard pressed as he 
 was, could not, for decency's sake, attempt to 
 force on the discussion of his private affairs 
 at the moment of so shocking a catastrophe 
 as that of old Prevost's death. So he was 
 obliged to wait and postpone the settlement 
 with Monsieur de Champmorin's notary, 
 under no matter what pretext. And this 
 was not altogether easy. In France, when 
 a marriage is being negotiated, the two 
 persons who are to be joined together and 
 made one can only, till that junction be 
 operated, be fitly described as ^^ hostile
 
 THE LOVERS. 123 
 
 parties." Those who act for them pass their 
 lives in the exercise of the cunningest 
 strategy, and to have '^ out-manoeuvred the 
 enemy" is glorious. True I it is a game of 
 ^' who wins loses," for if the victory be 
 gained the husband or wife may be lost. 
 
 "Now if the Champmorin general attained 
 to a full discovery of what had passed in the 
 Yerancour camp, he would, undoubtedly, 
 raise his own reputation for sharpness and 
 address, and be confided in largely by the 
 fathers and mothers around, but he would 
 cost his client a well-born, strictly brought 
 up, and very charming wife. Yerancour 
 pere knew that that consideration was a 
 secondary one, and he did not disguise to 
 himself the danger. Ha^dng explained, as 
 well as he coidd, to his adversary that his 
 own and his father's business had always
 
 124 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 been managed by Martin Prevost, and that 
 after the latter' s retirement from his office 
 he had preferred his advice to that of the 
 notary who was his official successor, Mon- 
 sieur le Yicomte contrived to obtain a re- 
 spite from his future son-in-law's repre- 
 sentative, and set to work to make the most 
 he could of old Prevost's heir. 
 
 There was no kindness, no attention, that 
 was not shown by the inmates of the Cha- 
 teau to poor Monsieur Eichard; and, though 
 the quality of these advances was still of a 
 patronising sort, yet they were very sooth- 
 ing to the unhappy young man, and he 
 gladly accepted them ; so that, by degrees, 
 half his time came to be spent at the Cha- 
 teau. He never grew to feel at home with 
 this family, but the intercourse with them 
 was pleasant, and took him out of himself.
 
 THE LOVERS. 125 
 
 With regard to Mademoiselle Eelicie, 
 there was assuredly a strange reyulsion of 
 feeling in young Pre vest's heart and niind. 
 You would have thought that she fiightened 
 him, and for the fii'st few days of his inti- 
 macy, if such- it can be called, at the Cha- 
 teau, he almost seemed to shrink from her. 
 Vevette, with her sweet gentle ways, her 
 simple piety, and her instinct of consolation, 
 attracted Eichard at the outset far more 
 than the fascinating Fehcie, who had, as we 
 know, before the recent tragedy, made such 
 an impression upon him. But this did not 
 last; and the nephew of the deceased usurer 
 and that born Soeur de Charite, Yevette, 
 were, even when taken together, no match 
 for Monsieur de Yerancour's eldest daughter. 
 Before thi*ee weeks were past. Monsieur 
 Eichard was hopelessly seciu-ed, manacled.
 
 126 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 and cast down enchained at the feet of the 
 fair enslaver; and whilst he regarded his 
 very adoration, — mute though it was, — as 
 presumptuous, it would have been hard to 
 say whether she condescended even to notice 
 that she had inspii'ed it. 
 
 The two sisters were very different ; dif- 
 fering in beauty as in character and mind. 
 Felicie was just nineteen, her younger sister 
 seventeen and a half. They were in every 
 respect two nearly perfect types of French 
 womanhood, — of those two great divisions 
 of the female sex in France, neither of which 
 do we Englishmen ever thoroughly under- 
 stand. The elder girl was a true repre- 
 sentative of the by far larger class, which 
 from Diane de Poitiers down to Madame 
 Tallien or to Madame Eecamier, through all 
 the Chevreuses, Montespans, and Pompa-
 
 THE LOVERS. l27 
 
 dours of three centnries, has borne haughtily 
 in hand the banner of feminine courage, 
 activity, and intelligence, and gone nnlo^ong 
 through history. The younger one personi- 
 fied that infinitely rarer order of women, 
 humble and heroic at once, who from Jeanne 
 d'Arc to Louise de la Yalliere, worship the 
 ideal, and accept martyrdom as a fitting 
 punishment for having loved. 
 
 There is the one characteristic common to 
 the two classes ; — both believe love to be an 
 evil, a thing unholy, and in the negation 
 whereof lies true sanctity. Only, whilst the 
 one side achieves the triumph easily, and 
 puts heart and soul into ambition and intel- 
 lectual pursuits, the other side yields to the 
 conqueror and accepts wretchedness and 
 death as the fitting penance for having 
 loved. Much of all this is owing to the
 
 128 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 social constitution of France, somewhat more 
 to the influence of the clergy and their curi- 
 ous interpretation of CathoKc doctrines, but 
 most, of all to the conventual and physically 
 ascetic education of well-born women. But 
 for the pivot round which all social relations 
 revolve in France, and on which depend all 
 her immoralities, and a vast deal of her in- 
 tellectual greatness, you need look no fur- 
 ther than to the condemnation of love, held 
 to as a principle by all Frenchwomen, — by 
 those who act up to, as well as by those who 
 are faithless to it. 
 
 Felicie de Yerancour was the very incar- 
 nation of what is called a superior woman in 
 France. She had latent in her all that 
 might make one of the most famous of her 
 kind. Self-possessed she was, proud, firm, 
 and a slave to what she believed was duty.
 
 THE LOVERS. 129 
 
 Such women are, in France, extolled as 
 high-princij^led because they are exempt 
 from all passion. Their worst feature is, 
 that they do nothing save upon calculation ; 
 their best, that they really are superior to 
 every circumstance. It is not in the power 
 of poverty or misfortune, or even of death 
 itself, to humble, or shake, or extinguish 
 the spiiit of a lady in France. This it is 
 which wms for them, often wrongfully, their 
 fame for devotedness. Xine-tenths are de- 
 voted to their high idea of themselves, — 
 which may stand instead of a virtue. The 
 tenth portion is devotion itself; but the mo- 
 tive for the devotion is to be found in the 
 idea of expiation. They have loved ! There 
 fore they must expiate. 
 
 Felicie was the perfection of the modern 
 beauty of France ; — small, delicate, grace- 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 ful, refined ; eyery movement, every look, 
 was feline ; and, once in her atmosphere, 
 yon were magnetised. She occupied and 
 attracted yon incessantly, raised all yonr 
 curiosity, and never for one instant satis- 
 fied it. 
 
 As to Yevette — ; but she is too well 
 known to be portrayed. All nations and 
 all ages know her. Italy calls her Juliet, 
 Germany Gretchen ; we in England cannot 
 name her, for she is legion ; in France only 
 is she rare, for she is out of the social 
 groove, and lives, however innocent or pure 
 she may happen to be, in a perpetual state 
 of terror and humiliation at the notion of 
 her sin. 
 
 Well ! October was drawing to its close, 
 and there seeming to be no chance of the 
 gloomy mystery being fathomed, the Pre-
 
 THE LOVERS. 131 
 
 YOst murder had ceased to be the sole 
 preoccupation of the public mind at D . 
 
 The weather was magnificent for the 
 season, and, in exchange for Monsieur de 
 Yerancour's attention to him, Eichard Pre- 
 vost gave the Vicomte permission to shoot 
 over every acre of his land, of which per- 
 mission the Yicomte profited to the utmost 
 extent. Felicie's dominion over the poor 
 young man had reached such a height that 
 he had ceased having any over himself. 
 He belonged to Felicie. And yet, if you 
 had studied him well, you must have come 
 to the conclusion that Monsieur Eichard 
 was not ^' in love." 
 
 One evening, towards the end of the 
 month, Yevette was descending the little, 
 narrow, stony path, leading from the parish 
 church of D to a side entrance into the
 
 132 ALL FOB GREED. 
 
 gardens of the Chateau. She had a prayer- 
 book in her hand. 
 
 As she turned a corner of the old wall, 
 and thus was completely hidden from the 
 side of the town, some one came from 
 behind the bushes which skirted the path 
 towards the open country, and a voice said, 
 almost in a whisper, " Yevette !" 
 
 The girl stopped, and turned pale, '^ Oh ! 
 how you frightened me, Eaoul!" she said, 
 clasping her prayer-book close upon her 
 breast with both hands. 
 
 '' Frightened you, Yevette ! " was the 
 rejoinder, in a tone of more sadness than 
 reproach. " Alarm is not the feeling I 
 wish to inspire, but I must speak to you, 
 dearest; I must indeed." 
 
 Yevette trembled, and looked thoroughly 
 scared, *^At this hour," she objected,
 
 THE LOVERS. 133 
 
 ^^ and so near the house. It is too danger- 
 ous ! Suppose any one should see us. 
 Good heavens, Eaoul, how did you come ? 
 why did you come here ?" 
 
 " Yevette, dearest ! " was the answer, in 
 a gentle tone, '^ I came here on foot from 
 Mollignon, across the fields, and I came 
 here because I tell you again that I must 
 see you. I calculated that, as this was 
 Saturday, you would certainly be going to 
 confession at your usual hour, and that as 
 you came home I could meet you ; but you 
 are coming back an hour earlier than usual, 
 — ^has anything happened ?" 
 
 ^' Yes," replied she ; '' Monsieur le Cure 
 has been sent for to administer poor old 
 Gayrard, the blacksmith, who is dying, and 
 he can only be in the confessional this 
 evening."
 
 134 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 The young man came close to the trem- 
 bling girl, and took one of her hands in 
 hisj which apparently increased her alarm 
 tenfold. '' Yevette," pleaded he, tenderly, 
 " we have a whole honi* to ourselves. You 
 will not be expected home before six, and 
 it has not yet struck five. Now listen to 
 me, darling;" and he drew closer to her 
 side ; " there may be a certain danger in 
 talking here, as we are now doing ; it is 
 not likely that any one will pass this way, 
 which leads only from your gate to the 
 church, — still it is within possibility ; there 
 will be no danger at all if you will come 
 down as far as the Pavilion, and let me go 
 in there with you." 
 
 The girl shuddered. " Into the Pavilion, 
 Eaoul?" she exclaimed. ^^ Why what 
 would become of us, if ;" she hesi-
 
 THE LOVEKS. 135 
 
 tatecl. ''What would happen supposing 
 my father " 
 
 " Where is your father ? " interrupted 
 Eaoul. 
 
 '' Out shooting in the woods belonging 
 to La Grande Ferme." 
 
 "Oh ! his new friend, Monsieur Eichard's 
 woods," observed he with a smile. '' And 
 Felicie?" 
 
 " Felicie is at home, hard at work at 
 the altar carpet we are to give Monsieur le 
 Cui-e at All Saints'." 
 
 " And, rely upon it, Monsieiu- Eichard 
 is in attendance upon her," added the 
 young man, with an expression of bitter 
 disdain. " I should not be permitted to 
 be alone with either of you for two minutes; 
 but that bourgeois-millionnaire may pay his 
 court at all hours."
 
 136 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 " For shame, Eaoiil," retorted Yevette. 
 ^' He has gone through such an awful trial ; 
 and besides, poor Monsieur Eichard, he is 
 of no consequence !" 
 
 During this little parley, Eaoul had 
 managed to obtain undisputed possession 
 of Yevette' s hand, and in the end he also 
 persuaded her to come with him into what 
 he called the Pavilion. 
 
 This was no other than a kind of garden- 
 house, built into the wall of the old ram- 
 part. It lay immediately under the terrace 
 on which, some days since, we saw the two 
 sisters sitting at work, and was entered 
 by a glass door, which opened upon a 
 narrow path of the kitchen-garden. A 
 small gate in the wall gave ingress from 
 the lane into the garden, and of this gate 
 Yevette kept the key ; for it was through
 
 it she let herself ont and in^ when she went 
 to the chnroh or the presbytere. Tl 
 occasioiis on which Vevette or her sister 
 ever moved abont alone were these. The 
 chnich and presbytere had oiiginaL ^ 
 dependencies of the Chateau, and the small 
 nmnber of servants in the Vc . 
 hold made it convenient that son: 
 the jonng ladies shonld venture unattended 
 from their own garden-gate to the sacrisfj- 
 door. 
 
 In the interior ci the P.viliuii thric- vvc-ic 
 two rooms ; one rath ^v, the other a mere 
 
 dark doset^ at the bav ' 'ut a window. 
 
 When the pair had c . and closed the 
 
 glass door, the young i: :: h: ~ off his hat, 
 and raising Yevette's hand to his lips, kissed 
 it siLently, and with a sort of grave rapture. 
 She laid her prayer-book down.
 
 138 ALL FOR GKEED. 
 
 What a handsome pair they were ! She 
 all grace, and softness, and tenderness, and 
 humility; and he all fire and energy, and 
 made, as it seemed, to protect her. Yevette 
 was the first to speak. He appeared to have 
 forgotten why they were there. 
 
 ^^Eaoul," said she, '^why have you forced 
 me to come here ? What have you to say 
 to me ? " 
 
 Holding her hand, which he took from 
 his lips, in one of his, he, with the other 
 arm, encircled her waist, and pressed her to 
 him fondly. Her head just reached his 
 chin, and as he bent down towards her, he 
 could not choose but kiss her beautiful fair 
 hair ; but he did so reverently. 
 
 '^ Don't tremble so, my own," murmured 
 he, almost inaudibly, — for she quivered 
 like a leaf. ^^ You do not, you cannot
 
 THE LOVERS. 139 
 
 fear me," and he drew her still closer to 
 him. 
 
 Vevette was all pallor, and then again all 
 one blush, and panting with terror and emo- 
 tion. " What will become of ns ! " she 
 cried ; and with a sudden, childlike impulse, 
 she hid her face upon her lover's shoulder, 
 and burst into tears. 
 
 Gently as a mother stills her babe did 
 Eaoul strive to calm and pacify Yevette. 
 " My very own," said he, when the first 
 paroxysm was over, " if you will follow my 
 counsels, and if you can rely upon yourself, 
 all will come right. Only answer me two 
 questions, Do you love me, Yevette ? " and 
 as he uttered the words, he looked at her 
 with his whole soul in his eyes. She gave 
 no reply in words, but as her eyes sank 
 before his, she again hid her face on his
 
 140- ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 breast, and a tremor, a kind of electric 
 vibration, passed over her frame. 
 
 ^' Well, then," resumed Eaoul, apparently- 
 satisfied, " will you consent to be bargained 
 away to some man you cannot love, as your 
 sister will be? Will you betray and destroy 
 me, out of weakness ? " 
 
 Vevette turned round and looked implor- 
 ingly at her lover. '^ What am I to do, 
 Eaoul ? " she pleaded. '^ Obedience to my 
 father is my most sacred, my first duty." 
 
 ^^ No, Yevette, it is not so," interrupted 
 Eaoul firmly. ^^ Truth to me is now your 
 first duty. You have given me your heart 
 and soul, and you must be true to me, or be 
 unworthy." 
 
 "Oh! Eaoul, Eaoul !" wept the agonised 
 girl, " there is my sin ; and for that sin we 
 shall both suffer ! "
 
 THE LOVERS. 141 
 
 ^^Yevette, there is your virtue, and virtue 
 is strength. Our love can save us, but it 
 must be strong. We are going to be sepa- 
 rated," — this was uttered with a visible 
 effort. '^ Don't be alarmed, my sweet one ; 
 there is no separation between those who 
 really love. We shall be nearer to each 
 other when I am in Paris and you here, 
 than you and any of those who are side by 
 side with you will be. I am not afraid of 
 the trial, Yevette, and therefore you need 
 not be so. My father sends me to Paris 
 to enter the offices of the Ministre de la 
 Marine as an unpaid clerk, — the interest of 
 my uncle the Admiral has achieved this 
 enviable position, — but that is merely the 
 beginning. I have another plan. I will 
 make my own career for myself." 
 
 ^'Eaoul!" interrupted Yevette, aghast
 
 142 ALL FOE GREED. 
 
 at her lover's boldness. '^And your 
 father!" 
 
 " My father will in the end approve, be- 
 cause he will be unable to help himself, fo!r 
 I will distinguish myself and bring fresh 
 honour to his name. But that is all a 
 matter of mere detail, and we have not time 
 for it now ; the one thing of importance to 
 us is, to be sure of each other. We are very 
 soon to be parted, darling. Will you wait 
 for me, and will you one day be my 
 wife?'' 
 
 Yevette's look of mute despair told the 
 entire tale of her mistaken education. 
 
 ^^ Will you promise me," continued Eaoul, 
 compassionately, ^' to withstand all attempts 
 to marry you to any one else ? " 
 
 "Eaoul!" exclaimed she with energy, 
 and as though illuminated by a sudden in-
 
 THE LOVERS. 143 
 
 spiration, " I will promise yon to take the 
 veil rather than marry any one else. That 
 I can do, and that I will do." 
 
 ^' Poor child!" rejoined her lover gravely; 
 " and so work ont the misery and death of 
 both yourself and me. And this is what 
 they call religions teaching ! IN'ow listen to 
 me, Yevette," and he put both his arms 
 ronnd her. 
 
 " Hush !" whispered she, breaking from 
 him hurriedly ; '' there is some one coming 
 down the path this way ; we are lost !" 
 
 ^^Be calm, Yevette," said Eaoul, with 
 authority ; "I will hide myself there in the 
 dark closet. Open the door directly ; meet 
 whoever it is with assurance, and try to 
 draw them away from the Pavilion." 
 
 Yevette obeyed mechanically ; took up 
 her garden hat, opened the glass door, and
 
 144 ALL FOE GREED. 
 
 found herself face to face with Eichard 
 !Prevost. 
 
 '^ Good evening, Mademoiselle Gene- 
 vieve," said he respectfully. ^^You are 
 just returned fi'om church, I see. I was 
 going out this way, up the steep path, be- 
 cause I have some one to see on the Place 
 de FEglise, and it is much nearer ;" and he 
 went towards the gate in the wall. 
 
 Eaoul had the key in his pocket. He 
 had shut it and locked it on the inside. 
 What was to be done? Yevette's confu- 
 sion was luckily somewhat concealed by her 
 large, overhanging straw hat, and Monsieur 
 Eichard was never supposed to be very 
 sharp. She stammered something about the 
 key being lost, and in fact said at last that 
 she had lost it, and was afraid she should be 
 scolded. ''It is no matter at all," replied
 
 THE LOVERS. 145 
 
 blandly Monsieur Eichard, '^ we can go 
 round. But I thought you always went 
 that way. I thought you came just now 
 from that gate into the Pavilion." 
 
 '^ I had come all the way roimd, but had 
 some seeds I wanted to look for in the 
 garden-house," she answered, trembling 
 with fear. 
 
 " Oh I I beg your pardon a thousand 
 times," said Monsieiu* Eichard himibly. 
 "I am afraid I have disturbed you." 
 
 They went back together towards the 
 Chateau, and Yevette let Monsieur Eichard 
 out by another gate, and then went into the 
 house herself, calm externally, but internally 
 convulsed with dread. 
 
 Had Monsieur Eichard seen anything, or 
 heard voices ? What did he guess ? What 
 did he know ? 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 That evening the sisters went together to 
 the church, and close behind the sacristy- 
 door Yevette perceived Eaonl. When they 
 went ont, Yevette followed Felicie. ^* All 
 is safe," whispered a voice in her ear as 
 she passed, and a key was pnt into her 
 hand under her cloak. Felicie had seen 
 nothing.
 
 CHAPTEE YII. 
 
 THE VICOMTE'S TROUBLES. 
 
 It was within two days of All- Saints' day, 
 when Monsieur le Yicomte went up just 
 after breakfast-time, to pay a visit to his 
 new friend and protege, as he thought 
 him. 
 
 Madame Jean received him with affa- 
 bility. She had grown gracious in her 
 demeanour towards the ^^ son of the cru- 
 saders ; " for, in the first place, the tragical 
 death of her old master had considerably 
 softened her, and in the next she relented
 
 148 ALL FOK GREED, 
 
 towards these ci-devants, — useless and ob- 
 structive as they seemed to her, — ^because 
 their conduct to her young master touched 
 her. 
 
 She shook her head, with a sigh, in 
 answer to Monsieur de Yerancour's inquiries 
 at the door. ''Ah!" said she, "we are 
 none of us the same since then. We shall 
 be a long while before we get over it ; and 
 as for poor Monsieur Eichard, he really 
 ought to be persuaded to go away for a 
 short time. He never was strong, but he is 
 wasting away now. He ought to change 
 the air. He wants change of scene, change 
 of everything. He's in a bad way." And 
 with another mournful shake of the head, 
 she ushered the Yicomte into Monsieur 
 Eichard's presence. 
 
 It was not the room that had formerly
 
 THE VICOMTE's TROUBLES. 149 
 
 been old Prevost's, nor even that imme- 
 diately under it, which his nephew had been 
 used to inhabit. It was the salon de com- 
 pagnie, as provincials term it, which Mon- 
 sieur Eichard had caused to be arranged as 
 a kind of study, and out of which he rarely 
 went. 
 
 When the Vicomte entered, Eichard 
 Prevost came forward, eagerly, to meet 
 him, and when they were seated he began 
 the conversation. "Has the shooting been 
 satisfactory ? " he asked. '' I have done my 
 best, and have told the garde at the Grande 
 Ferme to keep a sharp look-out ; but it is 
 hard in these parts not to share one's game 
 with all the ne'er-do-wells of the depart- 
 ment." 
 
 "Well, yesterday I tried the woods up 
 there," rejoined Monsieur de Yerancour,
 
 150 ALL FOE GREED. 
 
 pointing in the direction of the hill behind 
 the town. ^^ In the way of hares and 
 chevreuils there's something to be done 
 certainly.'' 
 
 '' Ah ! " remarked Eichard ; "in the high 
 timber ? yes ; and if I dared put old 
 Prosper Morel at your orders, you might 
 have excellent sport. ]S"ever was there such 
 a traqueur as that man in the world. But 
 then, you see, I daren't trust him with a 
 gun ; — you know he was complained of in 
 my uncle's time ; — the instinct is too strong 
 for him. We were obliged even to have 
 his permit taken from him. I daren't give 
 you Prosper." 
 
 "Well," answered the Yicomte, in a 
 musing manner, " I saw the poor old fellow 
 yesterday up in the woods yonder, and he 
 looks to me terribly altered. I can't help
 
 THE VICOMTE's TROUBLES. 151 
 
 thinking those few days' imprisonment, and 
 the examinations and suspicions, and all 
 together, were too much for him. He 
 stares at you in such a strange way, and is 
 more absent than ever. He has quite a 
 moon-struck air." 
 
 ^^Poor man, poor man!" exclaimed 
 Monsieur Eichard. '^ I do not know how 
 to compensate to him for all he went 
 through. In my poor uncle's time he used 
 to be down here every two days, at least ; 
 now he scarcely comes at all. Poor old 
 Prosper ! " 
 
 The conversation dropped, and it was 
 evident that Monsieur le Yicomte had not 
 paid Eichard Prevost this matutinal visit 
 merely to converse about the wrongs of the 
 Breton woodcutter. After a pause of a few 
 seconds, he began upon the matter which
 
 152 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 was occupying all his mind. ^' You have 
 perhaps not yet had time to look for the 
 acts I hinted at the other day," said he, 
 in the most propitiatory tone he could 
 assume. 
 
 Eichard Prevost looked as though he had 
 dropped from the clouds. The Yicomte 
 grew more insinuating still. 
 
 ^' I mean the deeds of transfer your 
 lamented uncle had been so good as to pre- 
 pare," added he, with a smile wherein the 
 deepest sympathy was meant to be allied to 
 the most gracious condescension. ^^ Alas ! 
 the papers were all to have been signed on 
 
 the very day on which " And here 
 
 Monsieur de Yerancoui' cut his narration 
 short with an appropriate shudder. 
 
 '' I remember now," replied Eichard. 
 ^'You allude to the papers concerning the
 
 THE VICOMTE'S TROUBLES- 153 
 
 sale of Les Grandes Bruyeres." The 
 Yicomte nodded assent. '' I must beg for 
 forgiveness ; but I have only once had the 
 courage to go up there again, — into that 
 dreadful room. I have only once looked 
 into my poor uncle's papers, and I found 
 nothing there." 
 
 ^' Yes ! in truth it must be dreadful ; — 
 dreadful ! " rejoined Monsieur le Yicomte, 
 whose self-interest was waxing warm, and 
 who hardly knew how to come to his point. 
 ^' Dreadful ! shattering to the nervous sys- 
 tem ; but we must be men, — my poor Mon- 
 sieur Eichard ! — we must be men ! " 
 
 Monsieur Eichard sighed. " My poor 
 dear uncle had agreed, I think you told 
 me, to purchase Les Grandes Bruyeres," he 
 began, with an apparent effort. 
 
 " For the sum of seventy thousand francs
 
 154 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 paid down/' replied Monsieur de Verancour. 
 ^^ They were to have been paid into my 
 hands on the fourteenth of this month, — on 
 the day of the murder." 
 
 Monsieur Eichard turned pale, and for a 
 moment closed his eyes. Then languidly, 
 he drawled out the poor excuse which he 
 had to oiFer. ^' It must seem deplorably 
 weak to you," he said, '^ but to enter that 
 room turns me sick. I have tried, and I 
 am not equal to it. You see I have even 
 left what had been my own room since I 
 was a boy. I instinctively fly from all 
 that recalls the horrible, horrible event ! " 
 Another pause. ^' My poor uncle, then, 
 had almost bought the property," he added, 
 half speaking to himself. 
 
 '^ Almost ! " echoed Monsieur de Yeran- 
 cour. " Quite ! He had quite bought it.
 
 THE VICOMTE's TROUBLES. 155 
 
 The formal engagement was taken. It was 
 binding " 
 
 " Not in law," interrupted Eichard 
 meekly. 
 
 ^^ Perhaps not ; but in honour," retorted 
 Yerancour, becoming desperate. 
 
 " Let us say in friendship," suggested 
 Monsieur Eichard. " Can you, — will you 
 confide in me as in my poor uncle, and let 
 me know why the immediate sale of the 
 property was so desii-able ?" 
 
 The Yicomte hesitated, and probably the 
 " inward man " made a wry face ; but the 
 outward one had to make the best of it, 
 for what else was there to do ? So he told 
 him all. 
 
 Monsieur Eichard listened with the deep- 
 est, most respectful, attention to the story 
 of which it apparently suited him to appear
 
 156 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 ignorant ; and Avhen the tale was ended, 
 lie rubbed his forehead repeatedly with his 
 hand, and seemed a prey to some hopeless 
 perplexity. 
 
 '^ So that if the property is not purchased 
 within a given time," he began, ^' there 
 might result a positive inconvenience, — a 
 kind of obstacle, — to the establishment of 
 Mademoiselle Felicie." 
 
 "• A kind of obstacle ! " echoed the 
 Yicomte ; "- why, it would be ruin, my 
 dear Monsieur, — ruin to us all ; for such 
 a parti as Monsieur de Champmorin is not 
 to be found readily in the provinces." 
 
 Monsieur de Yerancour, like a great 
 many people in his position, became press- 
 ing the moment he had ceased to be super- 
 cilious and disdainful, and he was on the 
 verge of becoming importunate. Now that
 
 157 
 
 he had been forced into confiding in 
 Monsieur Eichard, it did seem to him so 
 tremendous a fact that a daughter of the 
 house of Yerancour should be placed in a 
 dilemma out of which this low-bom, money- 
 lending bourgeois could extricate her, that 
 he thought by the mere statement of the 
 case to overwhelm that individual and 
 secure his services to an unlimited extent. 
 
 When the Yicomte made the hurried and 
 vehement admission of his embarrassment, 
 a flush stole over Monsieur Eichard's cheek, 
 and a light shot from beneath his eyelids ; 
 but he concealed both by his hand, on which 
 he leant. 
 
 " I could hardly have believed," he said, 
 slowly, and with an expression of sorrow, 
 '^ that any event, coming immediately after 
 the di-eadful catastrophe which has so
 
 158 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 shaken me, could give me such intense 
 pain ; but indeed, Monsieur le Vicomte, 
 your statement makes me miserable beyond 
 words. Do you require me to say that my 
 devotion to your family is without bounds ? 
 Obscure as I am, I may be allowed to 
 express my gratitude. Your kindness to 
 me since my misfortune has made me your 
 slave. I would give my life to serve any 
 of you." The Yicomte looked benignly 
 upon his inferior, and seemed to accept 
 his sacrifice with indulgence. " But, " 
 continued Eichard Prevost, "it is out of 
 my power to do anything." 
 
 "How out of your power?" retorted the 
 Yicomte, forgetful of everything save his 
 own needs. " Surely you can keep youi 
 uncle' s engagement ? " 
 
 " Perhaps at some later date," replied
 
 THE VICOMTE'S TROUBLES. 159 
 
 Monsieur Eichard. '' It would pain me too 
 much to say no I — perhaps later ; — perhaps 
 when I see clear in my own affairs. You 
 see times are bad just now; — the financial 
 crisis lasts still, and I cannot sell. All the 
 ready money has been carried away, as you 
 know, by the robbery ; and I am myself 
 in difficulties, for I am concluding the 
 arrangements for the purchase of the Cha- 
 teaubreyille estate ; and, — to you I will 
 avow it, — I do not know how to obtain 
 what is wanted for the fii'st payment, 
 because, as I said before, all securities are 
 so depreciated, that if I sell, I must be a 
 heavy loser. However, later; in a month 
 
 or two " 
 
 '^Good God!" exclaimed the Yicomte, 
 rudely, "in a month or two all will be 
 over I Unless I can get the money within
 
 160 ALL FOR GEEED. 
 
 a fortniglit Champmorin will be off! His 
 notary is a sharp fellow, and will soon find 
 ont how the land really lies. And once 
 this chance gone, where is Felicie to find 
 a hnsband ? I wish you would tell me ! " 
 
 "Oh! Monsieur le Vicomte!" answered 
 Eichard, bowing low, "it is not for such 
 as me to point out that; — but assuredly 
 so accomplished a young lady, so admirable 
 a person as Mademoiselle Felicie, and of so 
 illustrious a race, can only have to choose." 
 
 " Bah ! " retorted Monsieur de Yeran- 
 cour ; "no perfections are worth a centime ! 
 And in the pit of ignominy into which we 
 have sunk, gold only is powerful. The 
 noblesse deserts itself, the historical names 
 sell themselves to the highest bidders, and 
 take the mothers of their futui^e sons from 
 the gutter, so there be money to be got !
 
 THE VICOMTE's TROUBLES. 161 
 
 I tell YOU Felicie has no chance. She 
 must live to be a beggarly old maid, if 
 she can't marry Champmorin!" And then 
 Monsieur le Yicomte fell to wheedling 
 his opponent, and called him his '' dear 
 Monsieur Eichard," and expressed his con- 
 viction that he would help him out of his 
 difficulties in consideration of the friendship 
 they bore him. 
 
 When Monsieur de Yerancour took leave 
 of Eichard Prevost the latter had promised 
 to try and borrow the seventy thousand 
 francs, but he laid stress on the word '' try," 
 for he said the operation would be difficult. 
 
 The Yicomte was no sooner gone than 
 Monsieur Eichard opened a drawer in the 
 table near which he was sitting, and drew out 
 a large leather portfolio full of papers. After 
 turning over several of them, he stopped 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 102 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 at one, and looked at it a long while. 
 It was the deed of sale of Les Grandes 
 Bruyeres, drawn up by old Martin Prevost. 
 Monsieur Eichard spelt and weighed 
 every word, and then at last took it up 
 and examined it closely. In so doing 
 another sheet of paper adhered to it, and 
 from between the folds a half-open letter 
 dropped upon the ground. When Eichard 
 Prevost had sufficiently examined the deed, 
 he replaced it in the portfolio, then stooped, 
 picked up the fallen letter, and was about to 
 replace it too ; but something in it arrested 
 his attention, and he opened and read it ; it 
 was as follows : — 
 
 '' My Dear Monsieur Provost, 
 
 " I dare not go to you, for fear my 
 father should hear of it and have some sus-
 
 THE VICOMTE's TROUBLES. 163 
 
 picion, and my father must not know of 
 what I am about to ask. You once told me, 
 when I was only a boy, that if I ever 
 needed help I must apply to you. I do so 
 now. I am in absolute need of the sum of 
 two thousand francs. I have no means of 
 getting it, — and if I do not get it, I no 
 longer care for Kfe ! My future, my happi- 
 ness, everything hangs upon this, to you, so 
 trifling a sum, and a week hence wiU be too 
 late ! Do not let me ask in vain. I have 
 believed in your words, I have relied upon 
 you, I have no other resource. For the sake 
 of the gratitude they say your mother once 
 owed to mine, help me now. 
 ^^ Yours devotedly, 
 
 " Eaoul de Morville." 
 
 Eichard grew pale and red alternately, as
 
 164 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 he read and re-read this letter, and when 
 he saw the date, the 7th of October, he 
 muttered to himself, '^ Just a week before 
 the day ! Oh ! my God, my God ! what is 
 this ! " and crumpling the letter up in one 
 of his hands, he sank back upon his chair, 
 and leaned his head upon the table before 
 him.
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 LESS THAN A SQUIRE. 
 
 The Morvilles belonged to a class more 
 numerous in the west than in any other 
 part of France ; — to the class known under 
 the denomination of gentillatres de cam- 
 pagne. Before the Eevolution these people 
 had their use, for fi^om them the lesser 
 Princes of the Blood, such as Messieurs de 
 Conde and Conti, for instance, and the 
 Great Vassals, such as Messieurs de Mont- 
 morency, Eohan, and others of that stamp, 
 took the more active part of their house-
 
 166 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 holds ; and their adventurous spirit, mixed 
 with the daring of the ''cadets de famille," 
 helped, from the battles of the Ligue to 
 those of La Vendee, to give to the armies 
 of France their reputation for recklessness 
 and dash, and to keep up the prestige of 
 "la furia francese," acquired during the 
 Italian invasions of Charles of Anjou. 
 
 So far, then, the pre-revolutionary ex- 
 istence of these small landholders has a 
 motive. But after '89 ! After '89 it would 
 be hard to find any reason why they should 
 continue to be ; yet there they are as dis- 
 tinct as ever from the classes both above 
 and below them ; and having in good 
 earnest " neither learnt nor forgotten " 
 anything, they can scarcely be described 
 otherwise than as a nuisance. 
 
 What remains of the historical nobility
 
 LESS THAN A SQUIRE. "• 167 
 
 of France has, — so long as all remembrance 
 of, or reference to history has not been 
 wiped out, — a kind of signification. While 
 a Court and a Government subsist, which 
 require great dignitaries, enormously paid 
 functionaries, men whose business it is to 
 represent the splendour of the country, — 
 diplomatists, for instance, whose duty it 
 still is to communicate with foreign Courts 
 after the fashion kept up in those Courts, — 
 while all this yet subsists, the ancient 
 names of France have an obvious raison 
 d'etre. Besides, in some cases they serve 
 to perpetuate the traditions of elegance, 
 refinement, good-breeding, and really gen- 
 tlemanly feeling, for which France was 
 once famous. But to what use can possibly 
 be put the families of men who assert that 
 their social position, — that is, theii* name, —
 
 168 *" ALL FOE GREED. 
 
 prevents them from gaining money in com- 
 merce or trade, and the extreme smalhiess 
 of whose means deprives them of even the 
 ordinary education of the middle-class in 
 any other country at the present day ? Too 
 poor to live on a footing of equality with 
 those whom they call their equals, too 
 proud to associate with those whom they 
 call ^'low-born," — and who despise them, — 
 too idle to learn, and too proud to work, they 
 live on in their uncomfortable homes, and 
 on their narrow resoui'ces, virtually cut 
 off from all communication with the great 
 currents of activity or thought, and are, 
 perhaps, in all Europe, the most thoroughly 
 useless class that can be imagmed, — the 
 completest representatives of all that was 
 worst in the Ancien Eegime. 
 
 Early in this century there lived, at about
 
 LESS THAN A SQUIRE. 169 
 
 a league's distance from D , at a small, 
 
 tumble-down kind of farm called La Mor- 
 villiere, two brothers, one named Eene, the 
 other Charles, de Morville. The elder stuck 
 to his '^ dirty acres," married, had two 
 children, — a girl, who died, and Eaoul, 
 whom we have abeady seen, and who was 
 now twenty-two. The younger, Charles, 
 ran away from home at seventeen, was 
 sought for in vain for several years, had 
 made a sailor of himself, and achieved glory, 
 by diQt of hard service, and harder knocks. 
 He was now an admiral, and had recently 
 gained fresh distinction in China. 
 
 Although a vast distance lay, lq the mind 
 of the Yicomte, between the ^' Chateau " 
 and this wretched little lairdship of La 
 Morvilliere, and although the '' fils des 
 croises '' looked loftily down upon persons
 
 170 ALL FOR GKEED. 
 
 whose ancestors had certainly never been 
 more than squires to crusaders or cru- 
 saders' sons, even if they had been that, 
 still, old Morville was a capital shot, not 
 an unpleasant companion, and in the thinly- 
 peopled neighbourhood of D he was 
 
 better than nothing. At all events, he was 
 not a bourgeois ! He was not a lawyer or 
 a banker, or an employe, or a savant. He 
 knew nothing, and did nothing ! There 
 was always that to say in his favour. So 
 Monsieur le Yicomte consorted with him. 
 The two wives, who were now both dead, 
 became very dear friends, and the two 
 Demoiselles de Yerancour went to the same 
 convent, at Poitiers, with Marie de Morville, 
 for whose schooling at that venerable insti- 
 tution her parents contrived to find just 
 money enough to pay. The girl was deli-
 
 LESS THA^C A SQUIRE. 171 
 
 cate, required good living and exercise, and 
 the bad living and seclusion of the convent 
 killed her. She went out like a lamp, and 
 as no one around her could understand 
 why, she was, on the whole, rather blamed 
 than pitied. 
 
 Her mother moui'ned in silence over her 
 loss, and, at the end of a couple of years, 
 died also. Died, not only of grieving, but 
 because in the dull, weakening monotony 
 of an existence carried on under such con- 
 ditions as those of the Morvdlle family, 
 there are no reserve-forces created. Life 
 is never replenished, and when the par- 
 ticular sources of vitality of one epoch have 
 been drained, there is no general fountain 
 of life from which to borrow the vitality 
 required for a fresh period. There is no 
 transformation of strength, and men and
 
 172 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 women, — but, above all, women, — die 
 simply because they have not life enough 
 left in them wherewith to go on living. 
 The clock goes down, and stops. 
 
 Madame de Morville and her friend, the 
 Vicomtesse, were no more, — it is the fittest 
 expression for the act of their departing this 
 life, — within a year of each other, and the 
 void left at La Morvilliere was never to be 
 filled up. The wife had been, what she so 
 frequently is in France, the pivot upon 
 which everything and everybody turns. In 
 characterising her emphatically as " wife," 
 I am, perhaps, wrong. One ought rather to 
 say the housekeeper, for that is in reality 
 her function. She rules supreme, and makes 
 it possible, no matter how straitened are the 
 ways and means, for the family to exist 
 without getting into debt, and without
 
 LESS THAN A SQUIRE. 173 
 
 having their embarrassments dragged before 
 the public. 
 
 When the mistress of the house was gone, 
 the house at La Morvilliere went to wrack 
 and ruin. Old Mor\dlle was utterly in- 
 capable of either putting or keeping order 
 anywhere, and he flew into perpetual fits of 
 fury at the ever-recurring evidences of dis- 
 order. He did not complain of being 
 obliged to live chiefly on cabbage soup, but 
 he stormed at the fact of the cabbage soup 
 being rarely eatable. The pigs were so ill- 
 fed that there was no fat to the bacon, and 
 the historical food of Frenchmen in or about 
 LaYendee came up to table little more than 
 a vast bowlful of greenish water and yel- 
 lowish grease. In the shooting season there 
 was game, it is true, but old Morville, at 
 sixty, was not so active as he used to be ;
 
 174 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 for the house was terribly damp, and he 
 could not afford to wami it, neither could 
 he afford good wine to light up the fires in 
 his own bodily system ; and so he grew 
 rheumatic and morose. There was no 
 
 money to pay for anything, and the D 
 
 tradespeople were eternally clamouriQg for 
 the payment of their small bills. It was a 
 wretched state of existence, and most 
 wretched did old Morrille find it. 
 
 As to Eaoul, the real misery, however, 
 was for him, who had never yet complained. 
 He attained the age of twenty-two, with 
 comparatively no education at all. But 
 here Ts^ature compensated for all deficiencies. 
 The boy's energies were so rare, his intelli- 
 gence was so bright, his desire to acquire 
 knowledge so steady and strong, that he 
 managed to scrape together an amount of
 
 LZ.V5 TZ. - — ^ 173 
 
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 the dfimr : - _ > Vthi lbe 
 
 mn of Li- - "ijgy^ 
 
 Eaoul bad bad anodier patrao, — a Toy 
 ismgular one; and Hue 'irs? i^ •'^Tb^^ Ham. 
 Maitin PreTOBl, idio bavi aiii iitr^^jijaalile 
 findnesB for Ibe lad, and was Kported Id
 
 176 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 have said that if old Morville would or 
 could do nothing for his son, he would help 
 him whenever he required help. 
 
 The tradition in and about D was, 
 
 that Madame de Morville had once rendered 
 a great service to old Pre vest's mother, 
 when Madame de Morville herself was a 
 young married woman, and Madame Prevost 
 an aged one, within two years of her death. 
 Monsieur le Cure knew all about it, and it 
 was supposed that Martin Prevost did so 
 too. At all events, his liking for Eaoul was 
 a fact. Old Morville, so far from feeling 
 kindly towards Martin Prevost, held his in- 
 clination for the boy to be a positive piece 
 of presumption, and formally forbade his 
 son ever to associate with Eichard Prevost. 
 Admiral de Morville, who was a sensible, 
 practical man, and had rubbed off the crust
 
 LESS THAN A SQUIRE. 177 
 
 of provincial prejudice, if it ever adhered to 
 liim, in his rough contact with the world, 
 did his utmost whenever he came to La 
 Morvilliere to atone for his brother's sus- 
 ceptibilities and stupid mistakes, and he 
 never failed to call upon Martin Prevost 
 once or twice during his stay in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and invariably took his nephew 
 with him on these occasions. 
 
 But since the return of the two sisters 
 fi'om their convent at Poitiers, the one 
 
 attraction for Eaoul de Morville in D 
 
 was the Chateau. The pretext was a ready 
 one. Eaoul had been devotedly attached to 
 his dead sister. There was but one year 
 between the two, and he was sixteen when 
 Marie died. He himself was wont to say he 
 should never be consoled for her loss, and 
 that it had been a heavier blow to him even 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 than the death of his mother. Felicie de 
 Yerancour was reputed to have been Marie 
 de Morville's chosen friend, though Marie 
 herself had seemed to have a yearning love 
 towards little Yevette, who was but a child, 
 and called the elder schoolfellow invariably 
 her '^petite maman." 
 
 How it all came about, who shall say? 
 And, first, what was it ? Eaoul and Yevette 
 glided into a perfect unity of heart and soul, 
 into an identity of being, as a boat on an 
 unknown river glides down into a whirlpool, 
 without knowing it. They knew only of 
 their happiness ; they did not know of their 
 love, till the fact stood revealed to them 
 that their love was misery. Then it was too 
 late. 
 
 No one in the Yerancour household had 
 heeded Eaoul. He had not a sou ! — he was
 
 LESS THAN A SQUIRE. 179 
 
 sans consequence. Xot quite so completely 
 sans consequence as Monsieiu' Eichard, be- 
 cause Eaoul Tvas a gentleman, after all. tut 
 he was •'•beyond the pale" because of his 
 poveity. His remarkable good looks, his 
 winning ways, his intelligence, his fiery 
 energy. — all went for nothing. It was 
 totally impossible a ••man without a sou*' 
 should be dangerous to a ••weU-bora 
 woman." and so no one ever adverted to the 
 possible danger of Eaoul for Vevette. As 
 to old Moiwille. he never thought of his s<jn 
 at all. till his brother the Admiral came 
 down to La Moiwilliere one dav, and si^rni- 
 fied that ^"^ something ** must be done for 
 Eaoul. 
 
 •'Something! but what?" gnmibled the 
 father. 
 
 •• I will take care of that." replied the
 
 180 AI.L FOR GREED. 
 
 Admiral, and then propounded the famous 
 scheme for the clerkship in the Admiralty. 
 
 This happened about the end of Sep- 
 tember, and at first there seemed small 
 chance of the Admiral's project ever coming 
 to maturity. Not only did old Morville 
 object to his son becoming an employe, but 
 Eaoul himself respectfully, but firmly, 
 refused to consent until he should have re- 
 flected amply upon the obligations of the 
 career opened to him. Old Morville was a 
 fool, and his brother was neither astonished 
 at, nor did he care much for, his refusal; but 
 Eaoul, — what made him hesitate ? That 
 the Admiral could not fathom, and, after all, 
 as his nephew only asked for time, he gave 
 it him, and waited. In the first days of 
 October the Admiral returned to Paris, and 
 it was settled that Eaoul should write to
 
 LESS THAN A SQUIRE. 181 
 
 him when he had made up his mind, and 
 that he should have till the end of the 
 month to do so. 
 
 The one thing to which Eaoul de Mor- 
 ville did make up his mind was, that 
 Yevette should one day be his wife. But 
 what were the means by which to achieve 
 this end ?
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 MONSIEUE L^ON. 
 
 The great evil of that in France which is 
 not town is, that neither is it country. All 
 real grandeur is one, and the surging and 
 seething and moaning and toiling of the 
 human waves in a huge city's ocean are as 
 terrible a sight as the upheaving of the 
 Atlantic in a storm. Nor is the man who 
 stands alone upon the loneliest shore more 
 lonely than he who seeks solitude in the 
 rush and roar of human passions in a great 
 town. Life stirs the depths of both those
 
 MONSIEUK L^ON. 183 
 
 seas, and both, are full of sublime poetry ; — 
 but there is no poetry in a pond, and no life 
 in a canal, for neither has any depths to be 
 stirred. What is non-Parisian in France is 
 not rural or agricultural, it is narrowly pro- 
 vincial. On a narrow, shallow scale, an 
 imitation is sought to be produced of a 
 gigantic model, and, like all imitations, it is 
 a failure. It is truly as a pond to a sea, and 
 as no real ground-swells move it, and as no 
 real storm- winds lash it, it is, as a pond, 
 lifeless, and it stagnates. ^N'othing but 
 disease is to be gained by living always on 
 the banks of a pond, and thus it is that the 
 true provincial in France breathes only the 
 odours of stagnation, or if he mistakes for 
 life and activity his own attempts to ruffle 
 the waters, he merely succeeds in stii-ring 
 up mud.
 
 1<^4 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 It is a dreary and unwliolesome existence 
 this of small provincial towns in France. 
 Devoid of all that elevates, it detaches man 
 from himself; — flinging him, as it were, 
 away into some vast interest or cause, 
 and pinning him down to all his lower 
 wants and instincts, paralysing his mind, 
 drying up his heart ; and, — far from guard- 
 ing him from vice, — only making vice 
 itself worse by making it more matter of 
 fact. 
 
 If the little town of D had had all 
 
 its houses unroofed, and their secrets laid 
 bare by a '' diable boiteux," you would 
 have shuddered to find how much more de- 
 graded the human species was there than in 
 the larger centre of the capital itself; for 
 you would have found all the levels much 
 lower, and all the sins of sensuality and
 
 .VONSIEUR LEON. 185 
 
 greed utterly unbalanced by any generous 
 instincts or lofty aspirations. 
 
 As the collective efforts of the population 
 
 of D tended persistently towards the 
 
 fashioning of that small place upon the ap- 
 proved plan of a Grande Yille, you would, 
 had you lived there, have found a miniature 
 copy of all the faults and absurdities of 
 bigger cities. 
 
 There were people who did not visit 
 other people, but who, all the same, kept a 
 close watch over the proceedings of those 
 other persons whom they could not visit ! 
 There was intrigue and hypocrisy and dis- 
 honesty and cunning enough to famish the 
 amount desired by the most despotic Court 
 or Government in Europe a hundred years 
 ago ; a perpetual craving for ^^ place," 
 though there was no place higher than
 
 186 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 the dignity of Maire or Conseiller Muni- 
 cipal ; — and a considerable sprinkling of 
 adultery. 
 
 D , in this its transition state of pro- 
 gress towards the morals and manners of a 
 great town, had its ^4ion," — a real indi- 
 genous lion, or, as the French term it, a 
 " coq de village." This was no other than 
 a certain Monsieur Duprez, a man of some 
 six or seven-and-thirty, whose father had, 
 twenty years before, been the medical prac- 
 titioner of the place, and who was, by the 
 
 public voice of D , declared to have 
 
 ^' made his fortune." Monsieur Duprez was 
 what ladies' -maids term a wonderfully fine 
 man. He had bushy whiskers and red lips, 
 curly hair and a white forehead, and there 
 was about him a certain air of ease and good 
 nature and jollity which di'ew towards him
 
 MONSIEUK LEON. 187 
 
 many who, " cle parti pris," had decided to 
 keep aloof from him. The deceased doctor 
 had left his son a goodly house in the prin- 
 cipal street of D , and, instead of selling 
 
 it, the said son jauntily opined that he was 
 rich enough to keep it, and that it was 
 pleasant to have a home in the spot where 
 he was bom, and where, as he was gra- 
 ciously pleased to observe, he loved every 
 one and every one loved him. And so 
 Monsieur Leon used to come often to his 
 paternal mansion, and stay there for a few 
 weeks at a time, and it was rumoured that 
 a strong attraction was exercised over him 
 by the wife of the Juge de Paix. This 
 lady, though his senior, and now past forty, 
 was still undeniably handsome, and people 
 asserted that he could not loosen the chain 
 with which she had bound him. However,
 
 188 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 be that as it may, Monsieur Duprez came 
 
 very often to D , sent down showy 
 
 articles of fm-niture from Paris, gave dinners 
 now and then to the ^^ authorities ! " played 
 billiards with the whole to\\Ti, beating 
 everybody, and at the cafe on the Market 
 Place, opposite the Mairie, was the life and 
 soul of the daily gatherings, and initiated 
 
 all D into the deepest mysteries of 
 
 politics and finance throughout Europe. 
 What had set the crown to this gentleman's 
 popularity was, that, about a year before the 
 period we are speaking of, he had sent a 
 tolerable-looking horse, and what he styled 
 a Tilbury, down to his house, and when he 
 was present he drove himself out in this 
 vehicle, and when he was absent he lent it 
 to the Juge de Paix, who drove out his 
 wife. This the people of D called an
 
 MO^^SIEUR LEON. 189 
 
 equipage, and the position of Monsieur Leon 
 became a solid one. 
 
 One man alone would never consent to 
 have anything to do with Monsieur Duprez, 
 and that man was old Martin Prevost. He 
 resisted all that amiable person's repeated 
 attempts to captivate him, and when any 
 of their neighbours affirmed that Monsieur 
 Leon had made his fortune, and was a rich 
 man, he invariably answered, ^' That is 
 what we shall see some day." 
 
 Unfortunately, in the life of such small 
 
 towns as D the atti'action hardly ever 
 
 eluded is the cafe. Business and idleness 
 lead to it alike. Either it is the natural 
 place of appointment for those who have 
 affaii'3 on hand, or it is the natural place 
 for those to lounge in who have no employ- 
 ment for their hours. And so, fi-om the
 
 190 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 notary or avoue down to the labourer, and 
 from the petty tradesman up to the neigh- 
 bouring squire, you are pretty certain to 
 see the entire male population of a small 
 town and its environs send its members 
 successively to the cafe, — above all, if there 
 be but one. 
 
 Martin Prevost and his nephew, though 
 so dissimilar in all their ways, were alike 
 in this, that neither ever set foot in the 
 cafe; and that was what could be said of 
 no other individual in D . 
 
 M. de Yerancour, on the other hand, 
 would occasionally stroll in, and gratify 
 himself with a '^demi-tasse," or it might 
 be a '^ choppe," according to the season 
 or the time of the day at which his visit 
 was paid. "Within the last twelvemonths 
 Eaoul de Morville had taken to frequenting
 
 MONSIEUR Ll^ON. 191 
 
 the cafe regularly; and, above all, when 
 
 Monsieiu' Diiprez was at D he would 
 
 pass hour after hour playing billiards, or 
 talking with '' Monsieur Leon," as he was 
 familiarly called. 
 
 EaouPs age, disposition, and peculiar 
 circumstances, all combined to make him 
 the easy dupe of a man like Duprez. 
 Public opinion, — and no matter how small 
 the field, a few hundred men soon constitute 
 a public, and force those who live with 
 them to accept the fact, — public opinion 
 proclaimed Monsieur Leon successful. Here 
 was his power over Eaoul. Success was 
 necessarily young Morville's idol, for to 
 succeed was to win Yevette. 
 
 But succeed in what ? What was the 
 particular career in which Eaoul wished 
 to succeed, or for which he was fitted?
 
 192 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 That point remained vague and undeter- 
 mined in liis mind, but Monsieur Leon and 
 his '' success " fascinated him. Now, those 
 two words " reussir " and '^ parvenir," 
 which have within the last fifteen years 
 in France risen to such a terrible import- 
 ance, and which, be it observed, never are 
 associated with any distinct object, — it is 
 never said in what a man has succeeded, 
 or to what he is parvenu, — those two 
 words simply mean the sudden acquire- 
 ment of wealth by a lucky chance. They 
 imply neither genius, toil, nor patience ; 
 they merely imply that, by some piece of 
 good luck, the individual in question has 
 acquired wealth before he was too old to 
 enjoy it. They make the successful man 
 interesting, because fate is supposed to have 
 decided in his favour.
 
 MONSIEUR LEON. 193 
 
 Day after day then Eaoul thought more 
 highly of Monsieur Dujorez, and set all his 
 energies to discovering how he, too, could 
 compel fortune without loss of time. It 
 was not that he disliked work, but that 
 he was impatient; he would have toiled 
 night and day for his end, but he longed 
 for Yevette. And so he came to question 
 his new friend about his Golden Fleece 
 expeditions, and Monsieiu^ Duprez smiled 
 and said nothing was so easy, and that 
 really if men were not wealthy now-a-days 
 it was that they did not care to be so. 
 And then he invariably wound up his 
 speech with, "Look at me; when I went 
 to Paris ten years ago, I had but a thousand 
 francs in my pocket. I could not sell the 
 house here, therefore it was a dead weight. 
 I had one thousand francs ready money, — 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 and look at me now !" And at these words 
 Monsieur Leon was wont to indulge in a 
 look and gesture that seemed to say he 
 
 could buy all D if he chose : barring 
 
 old Prevost, that was the interpretation all 
 D gave to the words. 
 
 Ten years ! yes ; but ten years was 
 an eternity. Eaoul could not wait ten 
 years. Why, he should be thirty-two and 
 Yevette twenty-seven. " Ten years, what 
 an age !" 
 
 ^^ Money is made quicker now," would 
 reply Monsieur Leon. ''With ten thou- 
 sand francs in hand a man who knows 
 what he is about may make a hundred 
 thousand in six months and a million in 
 a year." 
 
 What Aladdin's lamp-like visions ! Eut 
 where on earth were the ten thousand
 
 BIONSIEUR Ll^ON. 195 
 
 francs to be got that were to be the key 
 to them all ? 
 
 By dint of listening to Monsieur Leon, 
 however, young Morville's head got filled 
 with ideas of the possibilities of riches ; and 
 one day, about the middle of September, 
 Monsieur Leon imparted to his eager dis- 
 ciple his plans for the working of a silver 
 mine in Mexico, and proved, to the latter' s 
 entire satisfaction, that the man who should 
 invest two thousand francs, no more, in 
 that incomparable scheme, would inevitably 
 realise fifty per cent, upon his venture; 
 for imder the seal of absolute secrecy, 
 Monsieur Leon mentioned the names of 
 great chiefs upon the Bourse who were 
 resolved to drive up the shares to fabulous 
 premiums the moment the prospectus of 
 the company appeared. Then, too, there
 
 196 ALL FOB GREED. 
 
 was no saying what the future might not 
 bring forth, — a young, active, energetic 
 man would be required to undertake the 
 journey to Mexico, and report on the pro- 
 gress of the works. It might be a journey 
 of some danger, but the remuneration 
 would be princely, and on his return home 
 what might not the successful emissary 
 aspire to ! 
 
 ^^Only," Monsieur Duprez would pru- 
 dently add, ^^the repute of the enterprise 
 is so high amongst the few who know of it 
 that it would be probably impossible to 
 secure twenty shares now." 
 
 Monsieur Leon, however, had taken a 
 sincere liking for Eaoul. The young fel- 
 low's intelligence and ardour pleased him ; 
 he delighted in his ambition, and would go 
 all lengths to serve him.
 
 MONSIEUR LEON. , 197 
 
 ^^But, my dear Mend," objected lie one 
 day, ^^ what is the use of talking in this 
 way of shares, and silver mines, and pre- 
 miums, and Mexican companies ? Where, 
 in the name of Heaven, could you get two 
 thousand francs ? Supposing that by any 
 effort I could get you the twenty shares, 
 could you by any witchcraft get the 
 money ? " 
 
 '' Who knows?" had been EaouPs reply. 
 " Perhaps I might find means." 
 
 This was just the period when Admiral 
 de Morville having proposed the clerkship 
 in the Marine Ministry to his nephew, con- 
 sented to give the latter time to consider 
 whether he accepted or not. 
 
 In the first days of October Monsieur 
 Duprez's importance rose immensely in the 
 public mind of D , for he was ob-
 
 198 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 served to receive telegrams incessantly, 
 
 sometimes two in the same day. D 
 
 was not a telegraph station, and a man on 
 horseback had to bring the despatches from 
 Cholet, an hour's ride, and his arrival was 
 an event, and shed glory over the receiver 
 of the missives, who was forthwith elevated 
 to the rank of a Mires or a Pereire. 
 
 On the 6th of the month. Monsieur Leon 
 announced to Eaoul that he could secure 
 the shares, and that he might have one 
 week wherein to find the money. ^^But," 
 added he, ^^ after the fifteenth it will be too 
 late ; for on the afternoon of that day I 
 must start for Paris to undertake the settle- 
 ment of various preliminary details with 
 my friends." 
 
 Had Eaoul de Morville in all his sur- 
 roundings any one who cared to note the
 
 MONSIEUR L^ON. 199 
 
 changes in his humour or his countenance, 
 they might have marked his visible anxiety 
 during that week. But there were none 
 who thus cared, and during those few days 
 he never went near the Chateau. 
 
 On the afternoon of the 14th of October 
 Eaoul called on Monsieur Duprez, and de- 
 posited in his hands two bank-notes of one 
 thousand francs each. And his financial 
 patron slapped him on the shoulder, and 
 said his fortune was made. 
 
 Monsieur Leon left for Paris the next 
 day, convinced in his own mind that the 
 money came to Eaoul from his uncle, for 
 on that same morning the postman had 
 carried to La Morvilliere a registered letter 
 with the Paris postmark. These little de- 
 tails are public property in places like 
 D , and the successful parv^enu had
 
 200 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 made up his mind as to what was in that 
 registered letter. 
 
 ^'Goes halves with the nephew in his 
 prospects of gain," muttered he to himself. 
 ^' Yienx loup de mer, va ! "
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THE FEAST TOR THE DEAD. 
 
 I HAYE already said that the Cure of D 
 
 was a remarkable man. His great supe- 
 riority lay in that he was so upright in 
 mind and so largely, unmistakably human. 
 The gi-eat fault of all ecclesiastics, whether 
 belonging to the Chui'ch of Eome or to 
 other confessions, is that they confine them- 
 selves narrowly within their establishments, 
 and ceasing to be men, become churchmen. 
 
 This was precisely what the Cui-e of D 
 
 did not do. He was a man among his
 
 202 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 fellow-meiij feeling for them and with them^ 
 and never preaching at, or condemning, or 
 denouncing and renouncing them, but sim- 
 ply striving to understand them. ITeither, 
 strong in his own faith as he was, did he 
 ever take upon himself to help the Almighty 
 in his work of awakening faith in others, 
 but waited till God's grace touched them ; 
 waited prayerfully and trustfully, but could 
 not be brought to recognise the duty of 
 knocking and driving faith into people by 
 sledge-hammer threats of damnation. 
 
 The Cure of D had nothing about 
 
 him of the conventional Apostolic type. 
 Nobody among his parishioners, neither the 
 old women nor the very young ones, ever 
 called him either an angel or a saint, but 
 every one respected him, and all were ready 
 to declare that he was the most thoroughly
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 203 
 
 honest man that ever breathed. He was 
 ugly and awkward, being large jointed, 
 stout, and ungainly in his movements, and 
 having a big round head, with a large flat 
 face. Yet the kind, truthful expression of 
 his ox-like grey eyes invited confidence and 
 inspired courage. Downhearted people al- 
 ways went to him and came away cheered. 
 He was of a singularly undaunted nature, 
 loved all men, and feared nothing. When 
 a misfortune happened to an unbeliever he 
 was by that unbeKever's side an hour after, 
 giving him the practical help he needed, 
 and invariably saying that good Christians 
 wanted him far less than bad ones. It 
 was notorious that when Pere Vincent's 
 cow died, and left him ruined, Monsieur 
 le Cure gave him the means of buying 
 another out of his own pui'se ; and as Pere
 
 204 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Vincent was an infidel and a scoffer and the 
 son of a father who had in '93 massacred 
 priests, this fact scandalised the bishops; 
 but it caused Pere Yincent to have himself 
 baptised within the ' year, and to bow his 
 head meekly before the gentle force of the 
 Gospel. It was also notorious that in June, 
 '48, when Monsieur le Maire, terrified 
 almost into insanity, was nowhere to be 
 found, the Cure had assumed his place, 
 and distributing cartouches to the Garde 
 Rationale and sturdy counsel to each indi- 
 vidual man, had organised and kept up 
 such a respectable system of defence for 
 
 the little town of D , that the various 
 
 insurrectionary bands that swept through 
 
 the department agreed to leave D un- 
 
 visited, and avowed later that they were 
 afraid of the Cure.
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 205 
 
 Well ! it is true ; that was a tHng often 
 said of oiu' friend. Many people pretended 
 they were afraid of him ; but those who did 
 so were always found to be half-and-half 
 natures, faint souls, who quailed less before 
 darkness than before light. 
 
 Between old Prevost and the Cure there 
 had been a sort of tacit compromise, some- 
 what after the fashion of that which exists 
 in France between the Church and the 
 State ; each, at bottom, regarding the other 
 as a necessary eyil. The Cure couldn't, for 
 the life of him, esteem Martin Prevost, for he 
 was far too sure of the latter' s usurious exac- 
 tions ; and his charity and his honesty had 
 bouts of hard fighting with each other over 
 the grandson of the Swiss valet de chambre ; 
 — for, let it be avowed, the Cure was, of 
 the two, more honest even than charitable.
 
 206 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 This it was which made Martin Prevost 
 
 * 
 respect him. A Voltairian himself, if he 
 
 had had to do with a priest who was only 
 
 a priest, let what might have been his 
 
 virtues, he wonld have got the better of 
 
 him, and made his life intolerable in D ; 
 
 but the Cure met him on his own ground, 
 
 and, if they had tried conclusions, would^have 
 
 beaten him on it, and this Martin Prevost 
 
 felt, and avoided all collision with him. If 
 
 the Cure stated that money must be given 
 
 for some practical purpose, old Prevost 
 
 gave his share without murmuring, and 
 
 what was more, Madame Jean contributed 
 
 hers too; for the Cure never went about 
 
 begging, and never got up '^quetes" for 
 
 sentimental objects. 
 
 When Martin Prevost came to his violent 
 
 end, the Cure was, as he invariably proved
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 207 
 
 to be upon all emergencies, the most useful 
 
 person in D . He inspired the Maire 
 
 with courage, and the Juge de Paix with 
 good sense, and persuaded the Juge d' In- 
 struction, who was sent from the chef-lieu 
 du departement, to refrain from committing 
 daily acts of arbitrary folly. If it had not 
 been for the Cure the whole town would 
 have been preventively imprisoned, and at 
 the same time, if it had not been for him, 
 the scanty traces of the direction taken by 
 the murderer would not have been dis- 
 covered. To Monsieur Eichard the Cure 
 had shown every imaginable kindness, going 
 even the length of offering him a room at 
 the Presb}i;ere, if the residence in his 
 crime-polluted, blood-stained home proved 
 too much for him. 
 
 " C'est un fier homme que Monsieur le
 
 208 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Cure ?"' — so proclaimed Madame Jean, who 
 in no way partook of her defunct master's 
 Yoltairianism ; preferring, however, for her 
 own spiritual needs, the mild humdrum, 
 gossiping, guidance of the Yicaire to the 
 rough-handed thorough direction of his 
 superior. 
 
 All Saints' Day had come and was past, 
 and a finer first of ISTovember had rarely been 
 witnessed. The sun was bright and warm, 
 
 and the sky blue as in May, and all D 
 
 had been present at High Mass, and all the 
 womankind of D had attended vespers. 
 
 The church clock struck six, night was 
 beginning to close in, and the vigils for the 
 feast of the dead, the solenm fete of the next 
 day, were ended. The Cure gave a last look 
 round the sacristy to see that all was in 
 order ; he had already allowed the Yicaire
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 209 
 
 and the sacristan to go to their respective 
 homes ; and then taking in hand an enor- 
 mous key which hnng with three or foiu' 
 others to a ponderous ii'on ring, he prepared 
 to put it into the lock of the so-called choir- 
 door, and lock from the outside the entrance 
 which was opposite to the Presbytere. Just 
 as the key grated in the ward he heard a 
 voice speaking to him. " Don't shut me up, 
 please," said the sweet, girlish voice, and a 
 slight form, clothed in black, brushed past 
 the Cure and crossed the threshold. 
 
 ^'You, my child?" exclaimed he on re- 
 cognising Yevette. ^'Why, I didn't see 
 you in church. I thought you had gone to 
 St. Philibert." 
 
 '^^0] I did not; Felicie did. You know 
 I always come here." These last words 
 were said in a subdued tone and contained 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 an allusion to what was rather a sore point 
 between the Cure and the Chateau . 
 
 In former days the Chateau had had two 
 parishes ; the upper or eastern parts of the 
 estate lying within the jurisdiction of the 
 
 ecclesiastical authorities of D , while the 
 
 lands to the west belonged to the parish of 
 St. Philibert. The Canon Law of France 
 prescribing that High Mass on Sundays 
 and feast days shall be attended by every 
 parishioner at the church of his parish, the 
 Yerancour family had seemingly no choice 
 now save to go into the town for the exer- 
 cise of their religious duties ; but the little 
 hamlet of St. Philibert had attractions for 
 Mademoiselle Felicie, and she maintained 
 that she had still a right to regard herself 
 as a parishioner of St. Philibert, and at all 
 events to take the Cure of St. Philibert for
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 211 
 
 her confessor. Accordingly, the compromise 
 hit upon tacitly by both parties was, that 
 if the inmates of Jhe Chateau attended all 
 great ceremonies at the to^yn church, they 
 were free to attend all lesser ones at the 
 church, or chapel rather, of the village, 
 ^ow vespers and vigils are not strictly obli- 
 gatory, and mass being over. Mademoiselle 
 Felicie had resorted for the afternoon ser- 
 vices to the place of worship most agreeable 
 to her, leaving her sister, as was her wont, 
 to hear every note of " les offices " at the 
 church at D . 
 
 ^'It is late for you to be out alone, my 
 child," said the Cui'e, as he turned the 
 heavy key in the rusty lock of the door. 
 
 '^I am not alone," answered Yevette. 
 " Mere Jubine's Louison is with me," and 
 she pointed to the tall figiu^e of a giii who
 
 212 ALl. FOU GREED. 
 
 was standing at a few yards from them, close 
 to the trunli of a sycamore. 
 
 By the dim rays of the lantern that he 
 carried in his hand you conld see an ex- 
 pression of displeasure pass over the rugged 
 features of the Cure. ^' She is not a fitting 
 person to accompany you," observed he in a 
 loud whisper. 
 
 '' Oh ! Monsieur le Cure," rejoined 
 Yevette, half reproachfully, ^' you must not 
 be hard upon her ; she is really a very good 
 girl ; and, besides, if she had not promised 
 to come back with me, I could not have 
 come at all." 
 
 ''^o\ of course not," retorted he, "so 
 long as Mademoiselle Felicie indulges in 
 particular fancies for this or that chapel, or 
 this or that minister of God." 
 
 " Ah ! Monsieui- le Ciu^e," interrupted
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 213 
 
 Yevette, '^now you are hard upon Feli- 
 cie." 
 
 ^^I hope I am not hard upon any one," 
 said the Cm^e ; " but I am anxious to see 
 the worship of the Almighty kept pure from 
 all unworthy personal considerations ; and, 
 for instance, my child, I do hope that if 
 death, — or the Bishop, — should remove me 
 
 from D , you will be to my successor, as 
 
 your parish priest, all you have been to me, 
 even should he happen to be the reverse of 
 whatever you may choose to think pleasant 
 or agreeable. "Where are we tending ? " he 
 added, after a moment's pause, and walking 
 on a step or two, '^ with all these littlenesses, 
 and caprices, and hypocrisies ? The love of 
 God and the fear of God are disappearing 
 from human hearts, and in their place we 
 have new-fangled practices, pet-prayers, and
 
 214 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 medals ! Medals ! " he repeated in a singu- 
 lar tone of deprecation. " Forms ! forms ! 
 imitation piety ! " 
 
 Yevette smiled, and said with a touch of 
 raillery in her sweet voice, ^'Well! what 
 you say is always the exact reverse of 
 what the Abbe Leroy says." The Cure of 
 St. Philibert usually went by his own name, 
 
 whilst the parish priest of D was 
 
 emphatically '' Monsieur le Cure " for ten 
 miles round. '^ The Abbe Leroy insists 
 upon it that we can never bind ourselves 
 down by too many forms." 
 
 '' The Abbe Leroy is a Jesuit," broke in 
 the Cure, abruptly. " They don't know 
 where they are leading the Church, nor how 
 they are falsifying her teachings. However, 
 faith and prayer are our only arms ; — and 
 hard work," he added ; '' the incessant labour
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 215 
 
 to bring all oiir bretlireii to see the truth, 
 and love it. My poor little lamb ! don't let 
 yourself be be-medalled. Love God, and 
 strive beyond your strength to act up- 
 rightly and honestly ; to do what is right. 
 All the medals in the world won't help you 
 as much as that will." 
 
 Thus saying, they reached the thresh- 
 old of the Presbytere, the door of which 
 was opened by a stern-featured woman, 
 long past the canonic age,* and familiar to 
 D as " Monsieui^ le CWe's Lise." 
 
 ^^ I've been drawn into preaching," 
 observed the Ciu-e, with a shake of the 
 head ; "a dangerous habit ! — leads to into- 
 lerance, and to judging one's neighbours. 
 Here, dear child, take this box of dra- 
 
 * No priest is allowed in France to be served by a 
 woman under forty.
 
 216 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 gees ; "^ tlicy come from the christening of 
 this morning ; — Pierre Campion's little girl, 
 you know ; " — and he tendered to Yevette a 
 ronnd box which he extracted from the deep 
 pockets of his wide soutane. 
 
 " Nay," objected Yevette, " not all, — give 
 me half." 
 
 " Give the other half to Mademoiselle 
 Felicie from me ; in her peculiar parlance 
 she will tell you she adores dragees," — the 
 Cure made a wry face as he uttered the 
 words; ''and make haste home now, for 
 look at those masses of cloud to the west ; 
 we shall have rain in no time ; and just feel 
 how cold the wind has grown. All our fine 
 days are over." 
 
 * The poorest person, upon the occasion of a cliristen- 
 ing, presents the officiating priest with a box of dragees 
 (sugared almonds).
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 217 
 
 Yevette hurried down the steep path with 
 her companion, not knowing why the Cure's 
 parting words had struck her with a sudden 
 chill. It seemed to her as though all her 
 fine days were at an end. 
 
 And sure enough the weather did change, 
 and wind and rain howled and pelted all the 
 night, and the morning rose upon as gloomy 
 a ''jour des morts " as any inhabitant of 
 
 D cared to remember. At a little after 
 
 nine the tolling of the church bell apprised 
 the population that mass for the souls of 
 the dead would soon be chanted, and from 
 almost every house or shop -door you saw 
 individuals of both sexes and all ages issu- 
 ing ; for whatever the religious opinions of 
 Frenchmen or women, this is a fete from 
 which they are rarely absent. The bell 
 tolled on for more than half an hour, till, at
 
 218 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 ten o'clock, it ceased, marking the moment 
 when High Mass began. 
 
 The church of D was, like many of 
 
 those in the west of France, bnilt at various 
 periods ; destroyed during the barbarous 
 wars of the thirteenth and foiu-teenth cen- 
 turies, — for which destruction we English 
 had a good deal to answer, — and re-con- 
 structed according to the style of the epoch 
 following those troubles. It had a crypt, 
 which with a part of the wall at the back of 
 the choir was of the tenth century, the nave 
 was of the fifteenth, and the chief entrance, 
 with its pointed Gothic arch and rich stone 
 carvings, bore the date of 1508. Inside it 
 was very plain, but possessed a few objects 
 of local interest, — one handsome tomb of a 
 princess of the House of Anjou ; another, 
 quite modern, of a distinguished Polish
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 219 
 
 exile ; and several partially-filled windows 
 of extremely fine old stained-glass. The 
 Eevolution had committed great havoc here, 
 and vast spaces of duU lead-coloured panes 
 intervened between the rescued portions of 
 colour, gorgeous as the richest tissues of the 
 East, and quite sufficient, when the sun 
 blazed upon them in midsummer, to throw a 
 carpet of red, blue, and gold upon the stone 
 pavement of the aisles. 
 
 There was no brightening ray, however, 
 to enliven the church on this 2nd of 
 November. All was dismal as the occasion 
 itself. The altar was hung with black, 
 and dimly lighted, and in the centre of 
 the nave rose a large, heavy-looking edifice 
 di'aped in black cloth, covered with silver 
 flames, sui^mounted with black and white 
 plumes, and surroimded with tall, gi^eat
 
 220 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 tapers, the yellow wax wherefrom guttered 
 down in the draughts of air that entered 
 through every opening. At a little after 
 nine you began to hear the sharp sound of 
 sabots upon the floor. They came in one 
 by one; the closing door gave a muffled 
 slam, the ring of an umbrella dropping upon 
 the pavement produced a metallic sound, 
 the wooden heels tapped against the stone, 
 a half-drenched, poorly-dressed peasant made 
 his, or her, way up to the wooden benches, 
 and all was again still. Till just before 
 mass was commenced only the very devout 
 were visible, and these were mostly country 
 people, — what in France are called culti- 
 vateurs, — and their families. During the 
 procession round the church, there were 
 few of the townsfolk, but all who were 
 present followed the procession, and joined
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 221 
 
 in the ghostly chants which the ritual of 
 Eome prescribes for this part of the cere- 
 mony. One of the earliest of these assist- 
 ants was the woodcutter, Prosper Morel, 
 and though he came the very last in the 
 line following the banner and the priests, 
 
 he seemed foremost of all in the fervour 
 
 « 
 of spirit with which he joined the ardent 
 
 invocations of the Chui'ch. His coarse, 
 
 much patched, and darned blouse was 
 
 wet through, for apparently he had no 
 
 umbrella, and a broad-brimmed grey hat 
 
 was crushed between his two horny hands, 
 
 which he held clasped together on his 
 
 breast, and in an attitude of agonised 
 
 entreaty. "With head high uplifted, and 
 
 eyes staring, as it were, through the very 
 
 roof above him, the uncouth-looking Breton 
 
 poured forth the ever-recuiTing '^ Libera
 
 222 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 me " with tremendous force, and in a 
 strangely funereal tone. When the pro- 
 cession was ended, Prosper retired to a 
 vacant corner close to a lateral door right 
 opposite the pulpit, and knelt down upon 
 the pavement, seemingly having no place 
 upon any of the wooden benches. 
 
 Somewhat before ten o'clock the real con- 
 gregation began to pour in, and Monsieur 
 le Maire took his place in the carved oak 
 state-pew in front of the pulpit, where, on 
 worm-eaten old chairs, covered with moth- 
 eaten red velvet, the notables and worthies 
 of the parish were entitled to sit. M. de 
 Yerancour and Eichard Prevost, by reason 
 of their importance in the parochial ad- 
 ministration, sat there also. In the centre 
 of the church were ranged the various heads 
 of the society of D , chiefly remark-
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 223 
 
 able from the different degrees of riclmess 
 of their respective prie-dieiis. There were 
 the doctor and his mother, wife, and 
 children, and the notary with his ^vife, 
 and the schoolmaster, and the hotel-keeper, 
 and the Juge de Paix, with his wife and 
 a lanky boy. The Jnge de Paix, who was 
 a ''philosophe," was remarkable for never 
 kneeling; he went to church because that 
 was fitting in his position, but he stood 
 when others knelt, and thought that this 
 conciliated personal independence with re- 
 spect for the forms honoured by the State. 
 
 When the Cure mounted the altar-steps 
 and began to recite the '' Introito," there 
 was not a person of any note in the town 
 absent from the church. Madame Jean, in 
 very handsome mourning, had, on the whole, 
 the finest prie-dieu of all, — tapestry-work,
 
 224 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 red poppies, bine corn-flowers, and a white 
 cross in the middle. The brigadier de 
 gendarmerie was splendidly got np. 
 
 When the terrible chant of the '^ Dies 
 Iree " wailed and moaned throngh the 
 chnrch, many a head was bowed down, 
 and although nothing could exceed the 
 discordance of the soimds on wliich the 
 awful words were borne, and although the 
 drone of the serpent, out of tune and out 
 of time, and confided to the musical 
 aptitudes of a fanatical cobbler, verged 
 upon the ridiculous, nothing seemed felt 
 but the dread of the future and the grief 
 for the lost. Poor little Yevette was ob- 
 served to sob bitterly as she hid her head 
 in her handkerchief, and both old Morville 
 and his son Eaoul covered their faces with 
 their hats. Eichard Prevost was pale, and
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 225 
 
 looked ill, and old Prosper, still on his 
 knees in his comer, was intent upon his 
 large-beaded rosary, and mumbled over it 
 like one of the cripples in his own province 
 on his way to a '^ pardon." 
 
 When the Gospel had been read, the 
 Cure ascended the pulpit, and, as it is 
 the custom in country churches, prepared 
 to address a few words to his hearers upon 
 the special import of the day's service. 
 
 The Ciu'e was no orator, and he knew it, 
 and never attempted to make elaborate 
 discourses, which, had they been the finest 
 in the world, would have been lost upon 
 his hearers. His sermons were generally 
 short and to the point, and merely aimed 
 at impressLQg his auditory with the reality 
 and comprehensibility of the Christian doc- 
 trine, and at briaging home to their minds 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 the true sense of whatever might be the 
 particular lesson of the day. 
 
 His subject on this 2nd of November 
 was already found; — it was death. Few 
 among us who have passed their childhood 
 do not respond to the melancholy of that 
 theme ! And so the congregation of the 
 
 church of D listened to the Cure's 
 
 homely words with rapt attention, and 
 dwelt anew in anguish upon the beloved 
 who were for ever gone. 
 
 " For ever ! " There was the mystery — 
 the terror or the hope ; and there, of course, 
 the priest, full of faith, strove to bring over 
 every individual listener to grasp, as it 
 were, with his hand the reasons for believ- 
 ing. Stifled sobs and low wailings answered 
 his appeal, and no eloquence was needed to 
 touch even the most rugged hearts on this
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 227 
 
 one point where all had suffered. The 
 howling of the wind without, and the 
 plashing of the rain, made a gloomy accom- 
 paniment to the scene. 
 
 When his short addi-ess was nearly ended, 
 the Cure paused, and then in a few sen- 
 tences adverted to the horrible crime by 
 which the hitherto peaceful town had been 
 affrighted, — the murder of Martin Prevost. 
 '^ We have not only felt the grief and the 
 sorrow of death," said he, ^' but the terror 
 of death has visited us ; — death in its most 
 dreadful form, the form of murder ! And 
 the murderer is unpunished, unsuspected !" 
 
 And then, leaning forwards upon the 
 cushion in front of the pulpit, and speaking 
 more slowly than before, he thus continued 
 his discourse: — '^I would wish you all," 
 said he with extreme earnestness, ''to study
 
 228 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 the last words of to-day's Gospel, for you 
 will see how they apply to the terrible 
 mystery which so shocks us all." Placing 
 his finger upon the page of the book open 
 before him — ^^ Listen!" he added; ^'Tor 
 the hour will come in which all who are in 
 their tombs will hear the voice of the Son 
 of God. And those who have acted 
 righteously will arise, and theirs shall be 
 the resurrection to life ; and those who have 
 done evil will also arise, but only to be 
 judged.' Now, my brethren, these are not 
 vain words ; these are facts. It is good 
 you should look upon them as such. We 
 are regretful at this moment that the evil- 
 doer should have escaped, for his escape 
 might have called down wrong and misery 
 upon the innocent, and it is God's mercy 
 alone which has allowed it to be clearly
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 229 
 
 proved that among oiir neighbours stands no 
 murderer : but, my brethren, the evil-doer 
 has not escaped ; it is but a reprieve ; — it is 
 only for a few months, or weeks, or days. 
 He cannot escape, my brethren ; no one can 
 escape ; for when that hour of which we are 
 told strikes, the mui'derer will rise, but by 
 his side will be the man he murdered ! 
 Perhaps even now he is trying to forget, 
 perhaps he has forgotten ; but the hour will 
 come, — come as surely as that I am stand- 
 ing here, — and when he gets out of his 
 grave he will see over again what he hoped 
 never to see more. He will see the blood- 
 stained head and face ; and the eyes, whose 
 death-glare he did not see, will stare at him, 
 and Martin Prevost will clutch his hand and 
 lead him up to the eternal tribunal. They 
 will stand there together face to face."
 
 230 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 These words, whereby the Cure had 
 merely intended to impress on his hearers 
 the certainty of retribution, and the matter- 
 of-fact truth of Gospel teachings, seemed 
 to have struck a strange terror into the 
 entire congregation. The remainder of 
 mass was attended to in silence, and the 
 departing crowd exchanged silent greetings 
 on the threshold of the church. The wind 
 still howled pitifully, and the rain beat 
 against the windows, and the lowering grey 
 sky looked like a pall. 
 
 When the last parishioner had departed, 
 Eaoul de Morville left his father's side and 
 went back into the church to fetch the 
 prayer-book he had mislaid upon liis chair. 
 ''Why, Prosper, what's the matter?" he 
 exclaimed, as, on turning round to go out 
 by the side-door, he saw the woodcutter still
 
 THE FEAST FOR THE DEAD. 231 
 
 on his knees, with his rosary in his hand, 
 but motionless. The man's head was thrown 
 back, and rested upon the stone carvings of 
 the holy-water font ; his eyes were wide 
 open, and so was his mouth ; but nor look 
 nor breath nor sound came from either. His 
 fingers were closed tightly over his beads. 
 He was apparently in a trance or a fit. 
 
 Eaoul shook him, and threw water from 
 the font over him, but he was some minutes 
 before he recalled him to himself. When 
 consciousness did return, he shrank fi'om 
 Eaoul as from a reptile, gathered himself up, 
 and, quivering with fear, fixed his dull, 
 scared look upon Eaoul with an expression 
 of horror quite indescribable. 
 
 The beadle came by to see that no one 
 lingered in the church, and young Morville 
 recommended the Breton to his care.
 
 232 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 In the end Prosper consented to rise and 
 make his way out of the church, but he 
 went alone, fiercely resenting any attempts 
 to lead him ont with an inarticulate groan, 
 and with a look that at once was full of 
 hatred and terror. The beadle shrugged his 
 shoulders. '^ The old fellow's head never 
 was good for much," he mumbled ; ^^ and 
 what with the murder and his own im- 
 prisonment, it's all topsy-turvy now, — il a 
 demenage, pauvre bonhomme ! " and the 
 beadle tapped his forehead with his fat 
 forefinger.
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE F^LICIE's HUSBAND. 
 
 The ''fortnight" which Monsieur de Yeran- 
 conr had begged from De Champmorin's 
 notary was past, and another week added 
 to it, and still there was no news of the 
 money, and the suspense endured by the 
 unfortunate Yicomte was becoming intoler- 
 able ; and various slight signs were here 
 and there appearing of Mademoiselle Feli- 
 cie's matrimonial defeat being likely to 
 stand revealed to the general public. It 
 was really beyond bearing ! And the worst
 
 234 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 of it was, that it was impossible not to be 
 grateful to poor, good, patiently-toiling Mon- 
 sieur Eichard for the manifest trouble he 
 was taking. He never totally deprived the 
 sorely perplexed father of hope, never an- 
 nounced to him the failure of his negotia- 
 tions, or put himself in the position of a 
 man who had done his utmost and could 
 do no more ; but, on the contrary, played 
 with his solicitor after the most tantalising 
 fashion, and was for ever showing him a 
 chance of the attainment of their ends. 
 Their ends ! — for of his zeal in the cause 
 of the family, Monsieur Eichard left no 
 doubt. And the Yicomte felt it was the 
 ^^ family," the house of Yerancour, which 
 was being served; — and that was as it 
 should be. It would have been presump- 
 tuous in Monsieur Eichard to have tried
 
 MADEMOISELLE FfiLICIE's HUSBAND. 235 
 
 to render a service to the Yicomte, out of 
 personal friendship ; whereas, besides being 
 convenient, it was creditable to a man like 
 Eichard Prevost to wish so ardently to 
 serve the interests of an illustrious race. 
 And from the point of view of '^ ma 
 maison," as Monsieur le Yicomte would 
 perpetually repeat to himself, it was grati- 
 fying to observe the plebeian's devotion, 
 while it did away with the necessity for 
 any personal gratitude, which was also 
 pleasing. 
 
 Such was Monsieur Eichard' s desire to 
 obtain for his noble patron the sum required 
 for the establishment of Mademoiselle Fe- 
 licie, that he was for ever acquainting him 
 with some new plan that his untiring inge- 
 nuity had devised, and that must be certain 
 to succeed ; — onlv just in the teeth of this
 
 236 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 ^^ certainty," something of the most im- 
 possible kind invariably occurred which 
 dashed all the seemingly so well-founded 
 hopes to the ground. There was only one 
 simple operation that Monsieur Eichard 
 never proposed ; and that was to dispose 
 of any securities of his own at a great loss, 
 and bring the proceeds to the Yicomte. 
 No ! it was always a question of "raising" 
 the money from some one else, and in this 
 transaction Monsieur Eichard was doomed 
 to perpetual disappointment. As to buying 
 the " Grandes Bruyeres," as his uncle had 
 been ready to do, that was utterly out of 
 the question. Monsieur Eichard had no 
 ready money ; everything was absorbed 
 by this purchase of the Chateaubreville 
 estate. 
 
 "It is a very heavy responsibility," said
 
 MADEMOISELLE F^LICIe'S HUSBAND. 237 
 
 Monsieur Eichard, one evening when he 
 was sitting with the family at the Chateau, 
 round the smouldering fire, " a very heavy 
 responsibility ; " and he sighed, and ven- 
 tured to take up Yevette's scissors from the 
 table and examine them attentively. 
 
 Monsieur de Yerancour placed his two 
 hands on his knees, bending forwards, and 
 looking intently at the toes of his thick 
 boots. ''"Well !" rejoined he, with a kind 
 of grunt, '' I confess it passes me to make 
 out why you have done it. I should call 
 it a terrible imprudence. To go and saddle 
 yourself with land, — with a very consider- 
 able landed property indeed ! — when nothing 
 obliges you to do so. I confess that goes 
 beyond me;" and the Yicomte threw him- 
 self back in his chair as if he gave the 
 problem up in despair. '' That we," con-
 
 238 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 tinned he, after a momentary panse, '^shonld 
 go on impoverishing onrselves to keep np 
 old historic memories, and prevent the 
 glorions sound of old names from being 
 lost in the horrid roar of Eevolutions, — ^that 
 is comprehensible ; it is one of the many 
 sacrifices to which our noblesse obliges us. 
 And how many are there of us who can 
 do it, even ? Not one in a hundred. We, 
 who are identical with the soil, we are 
 forced to sell it." 
 
 ''Perhaps," suggested timidly Monsieur 
 Eichard, ''perhaps that is why we buy it." 
 
 But the Yicomte did not seem at all im- 
 pressed by the force of this argument ; for, 
 unheeding the interruption, he continued, 
 "You people of the new school, you nou- 
 veaux riches, are so completely free ! 
 IN'othing trammels or binds you. You
 
 MADEMOISELLE FfiLICIE's HUSBAND. 239 
 
 can absolutely do whatever you choose ; 
 you have notliing to keep up — no ti-adi- 
 tions, no names, no ancestors who have a 
 right to expect from you the sacrifice of 
 all mere worldly advantages to the respect 
 for their dignity. We are trammelled, 
 fettered, chained down on all sides, whilst 
 you are free as air. And yet you are 
 always seeking to forge some chain for 
 yourselves. Land, forsooth ! land ! that it 
 is with which you nouveaux riches are 
 always bui'dening yourselves." 
 
 " It is possible," edged in meekly Mon- 
 sieur Eichard, '' that we may wish to found 
 something." 
 
 '' Foimd what?" exclaimed the Yicomte, 
 with truly superb disdain. ^'It takes ages 
 to found an order in the state. Xobody 
 founded us. We were ! What was the
 
 240 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 use of putting us down ? Found, indeed ! 
 I should like to know what the men of to- 
 day, the men without names, can found?" 
 
 ^' Not an old nobility, certainly," replied 
 Monsieur Eichard gently, and with a smile, 
 '^ but perhaps a new aristocracy." 
 
 " "Whew !" half whistled Monsieur de 
 Verancour, with a supremely contemptuous 
 curl of the lip. ^^That takes foui- genera- 
 tions at least, and heaps of money ! " And, 
 getting up and standing with his back to 
 the fire, he continued, '' Why, now, look at 
 what you're doing. When you've bought 
 and paid for the Chateaubreville property, 
 you'll have to put it in order, and restore 
 the house, — it's shockingly out of repair, — 
 and furnish it." 
 
 ^^ There's a great deal of splendid old fur- 
 niture in it," interrupted Eichard Prevost.
 
 MADEMOISELLE F^LICIE's HUSBAND. 241 
 
 ''Yes; but old — very old," retorted the 
 Yicomte ; " out of keeping with the habits 
 
 of modem " he seemed at a loss for a 
 
 proper term, " of modern " he hesitated 
 
 again. 
 
 " You mean out of keeping with the 
 habits of la petite bourgeoisie," said 
 Eichard, coming to his assistance. "■ But, 
 Monsieur le Yicomte," added he, ''I intend 
 to furnish, and I hope keep up Chateau- 
 breville on a scale not quite unfitting the 
 importance of the place." 
 
 " The deuce you do, my dear fellow. 
 Why, then, you'll not be able to do it under 
 a hundred thousand francs a year." 
 
 "I do not count upon doing it for so 
 little," answered humbly Monsieur Eichard. 
 
 " Peste ! " ejaculated Monsieur de Yeran- 
 cour, and the look which accompanied the 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 242 ALL FOR GEEED. 
 
 expression seemed to say, '•' Where have 
 these canaille stolen all this gold?" 
 
 A hundred thousand francs of income ! 
 Oh, the magic of those few words ! Made- 
 moiselle Felicie let her tapestry drop upon 
 her lap, and surveyed poor Monsieur 
 Eichard from under her eyelids with such a 
 strange look, but a gracious one decidedly. 
 
 ^' Diable ! " pursued the Yicomte. "Well, 
 then, you may make a marriage, — a good, 
 marriage ; it will be in your power to marry 
 a well-born girl without a fortune." 
 
 " If you would help — would guide me," 
 murmured Eichard. 
 
 " I know of none such," retorted the 
 Yicomte haughtily ; " but I know that in 
 Paris, for instance, there are plenty of 
 reduced families who will give their daugh- 
 ters to anybody who is rich. It is quite
 
 r.IADEMOISELLE FELICIE'S HUSBAND. 243 
 
 a thing of the present day, qnite a ne^ 
 thing in France. It has been for nearly 
 two centniies the practice to renovate the 
 lustre of ancient names by marrying the 
 eldest sons of illustrions houses to large 
 fortunes embodied in base-born girls. There 
 you have the '^ savonnette a vilain" of the 
 Eegency and of Louis XY., but it is only 
 recently that nobly-born gii'ls have been 
 sacrificed to become the mothers of shojj- 
 keepers. However, so it is now, and certain 
 it is that money can do anything. There- 
 fore, my dear Monsieur Uichard, as I said 
 before, if you have a hundi-ed thousand 
 francs a year to spend, I do not see why 
 you should not marry a wife whom the 
 ladies of the province should visit." 
 
 Monsieur Eichard bowed low and defe- 
 rentially, as though he felt the full value
 
 244 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 of the announcement made to him, and 
 nothing in his manner indicated that he 
 was other than flattered by the Yicomte's 
 behaviour ; for, in truth, the Yicomte meant 
 to be particularly kind, affable, and con- 
 descending, patronising, nay, — even pa- 
 ternal. 
 
 Mademoiselle Felicie, by reason of the 
 thirty years' difference of age between her- 
 self and her father, saw things in a slightly 
 different light, and was just capable of 
 understanding that Monsieur Eichard might 
 be anything but flattered by her parent's 
 naively contemptuous familiarity ; and when 
 their visitor rose to go, she proceeded to 
 a small side-table in the half-lighted draw- 
 ing-room and asked him if he would not 
 take a glass of eau sucree. Upon his ac- 
 ceptance of that favour, she mixed the
 
 MADEMOISELLE FELICIE's HUSBAND. 245 
 
 harmless beverage for him herself, tendered 
 it to him, and as she did so, allowed her 
 white hand unconsciously to touch his, 
 lingered for a few seconds ere she relin- 
 quished her hold upon the glass, and with 
 a perfectly angelic look asked Monsieur 
 Eichard if he were quite sure there was 
 sugar enough in the water. 
 
 And then another week went by, and it 
 seemed somehow or other to be becoming 
 known that Mademoiselle Felicie would not 
 marry Monsieur de Champmorin. How it 
 had transpired no one could say ; but it 
 was thought to be traceable to the Champ- 
 morin notary, who in moments of effusion 
 and confidential talk with trusted friends, 
 had discoursed upon the impossibilit}^ of 
 girls marrying without money, and had 
 unguardedly alluded to his client as '' much
 
 246 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 to be pitied" — insinuating, as it were, that 
 Mademoiselle Felicie, — having been fallen in 
 love with, unprovided as she was with any dot, 
 — could not be held altogether blameless. 
 
 Eichard Prevost abstained for three days 
 from going near the Chateau. On the 
 fourth Monsieur de Yerancour sought him. 
 Monsieur Eichard was warming himself 
 before a huge, blazing fire in his study, 
 when a loud ring was heard at the door 
 bell, a loud footstep quickly followed it in 
 the hall, and dispensing with Madame 
 Jean's attendance, Monsieur le Yicomte 
 opened the door for himself, and stalked 
 into the room. 
 
 ''Well, there it is at last!" he ex- 
 claimed, throwing himself into a chair and 
 letting his brown felt hat drop on the floor 
 beside him. " I always thought it would
 
 MADEMOISELLE F^LICIe'S HUSBAND. 247 
 
 come to this with, all these confounded 
 
 delays ; and now there it is ! S mille 
 
 tonnerres de Dieu ! " And all those good 
 principles which were to keep this "right- 
 thinking" fils des croises from swearing, 
 flew to the winds, and he indulged in the 
 comfort of a string of oaths, as if he had 
 been no more than one of those long-for- 
 gotten Sanlnier forefathers of his, picking 
 up salt in the Breton marshes. 
 
 '^ I beseech of you," entreated Monsieiu- 
 Eichard, rising, "do not give up hope. I 
 have, on the contrary, good news. I should 
 have gone to see you last evening if the 
 weather had not been so bad and my cough 
 troublesome, but I was going down to the 
 Chateau now. I have a letter from an old 
 friend of my poor uncle's in IN'antes, and I 
 am positively not without hopes that perhaps
 
 248 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 even a sale of Les Grandes Bruyeres might 
 be possible. Here, I will read you the 
 letter. I got it yesterday." And Monsieur 
 Eichard began busily throwing over the 
 letters and papers before him. 
 
 " The devil take your letter ! " stormed 
 the Yicomte; '^what do all the letters in 
 the world matter now ? Why Champmorin 
 refuses ! " And striding up to the table, 
 Monsieur de Yerancour brought his hand 
 down upon it with a heavy thump, and the 
 two men looked each other in the face. 
 
 ^' Ee — fu — ses ! " stammered out Eichard 
 Prevost. '^ Oh ! Monsieur le Yicomte, I am 
 constrained to say I cannot master the sense 
 of those words. Monsieur de Champmorin 
 refuses the honour of being the husband of 
 Mademoiselle de Yerancour ! " 
 
 The exasperated parent was somewhat
 
 MADEMOISELLE F:gLICIE'S HUSBAND. 249 
 
 mollified at sight of Monsieur Eichard's 
 indignation. " Eead that," said he, handing 
 over to him a letter. 
 
 Monsieur Eichard did read, and was 
 seemingly overpowered by what he read, for 
 his countenance was thoroughly what his 
 countrymen term " boule verse " when he 
 returned the paper to its owner. 
 
 ^' You will admit,'' observed the latter, 
 " that nothing is left for me to do. It is as 
 complete a conge as can well be given, and, 
 moreover, couched in such respectful and 
 moumfiil terms that probably public opinion 
 would expect me to condole with the 
 writer." 
 
 Eichard Prevost took the letter back into 
 his hand, pored over it anew, and then 
 replied with an air and in a tone of supreme 
 depression.
 
 ^50 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 '' !N"o ! " he sighed, as though vanquished 
 by fate, ^Hhere is nothing left to do, — 
 nothing ! " 
 
 Monsieur de Yerancour sprang from his 
 seat, and paced up and down the room. 
 "Nothing!'' echoed he, with stentorian 
 lungs ; " that is exactly what drives me 
 mad ! I feel ready to shoot myself because 
 I have no earthly pretext for shooting 
 Champmorin ! " 
 
 " Good God ! " exclaimed Eichard Prevost 
 in a tone of downright agony, "to think of 
 such a thing ! A demoiselle de Yerancour 
 refused by a mere country gentleman ! 
 Eefused ! Such a person as Mademoiselle 
 Felicie ! — such birth and position ! — such a 
 name I " 
 
 The Yicomte went on pacing up and 
 down and muttering, and Monsieur Eichard
 
 MADEIilOTSELLE FELICIE's HUSBAND. 251 
 
 went on watching him without being 
 noticed. 
 
 ^' One thing must at all events be seen 
 to," ejaculated Eichard, as though struck by 
 a sudden inspiration. ^' The whole must be 
 kept secret ; it must never be known 
 that " 
 
 " Not known ! " thundered the Yicomte. 
 '^ Well, my good sir, one sees what it is to 
 live out of the world as you do ! Why, it 
 is known abeady. Everybody knows it. 
 It was known before it was true ! These 
 things always are ! " 
 
 '' So that," groaned Monsieur Eichard, 
 " it will be public throughout the province 
 that Mademoiselle Felicie — Ma-de-moi-selle 
 Felicie," — and he dwelt on every syllable 
 solemnly, — "has been given up, discarded, 
 refused ! It is too dreadful ! " " Can
 
 252 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 nothing be done ? " recommenced Monsieur 
 Eichard, with a kind of timid eagerness, after 
 a silence of a few moments. 
 
 ^^What?" rejoined Monsieur de Yeran- 
 cour. 
 
 '' Indeed, it is hard to say," rejoined the 
 other sadly ; " but surely it would be possi- 
 ble to find some remedy. Anything would 
 be preferable to the present position." 
 
 '' I should think it would, indeed ! " 
 retorted bitterly Monsieur de Yerancour. 
 
 ^^Well, but — " suggested hesitatingly 
 Monsieur Eichard, '' could no other parti be 
 found?" 
 
 "Where?" cried the Yicomte. "Do 
 you fancy, my worthy Monsieur Eichard, 
 that husbands for discarded young ladies 
 are to be found by beating the woods for 
 them, and that they come as snakes do
 
 MADEMOISELLE F^LICIE's HUSBAND. 253 
 
 when they smell the catcher's pot of boil- 
 ing milk ? * ^0, thank you ! No dot, no 
 husband ! Where is there one anywhere 
 round ? Look through the department. 
 Why, there's not even an old invalid, wanting 
 a nurse, — not even a mesalliance to be 
 got ! " 
 
 Monsieur Eichard fell to musing, and the 
 Yicomte went on walking up and down, but 
 he did seem comforted by the talk he was 
 having. '' Monsieur le Yicomte," at length 
 said, in a low and unsteady tone, Eichard 
 Prevost; "there is a mesalliance, if Made- 
 moiselle Felicie would consent to that. I 
 know of one — a very — an extremely rich 
 parti." 
 
 " The devil you do ! " broke in Monsieur 
 
 * In Poitou it is a trade to catcli snakes, and the 
 catcliers attract them by boiling milk.
 
 254 ALL FOR GKEEU. 
 
 de Yerancour, stopping short in his walk. 
 '' Where is he to be fonnd ? Who is he ? " 
 Eichard Prevost was pale as a ghost, so pale 
 that the edge of his eyelids seemed quite 
 pink, as he looked hesitatingly at his inter- 
 locutor. "Well!" exclaimed the latter, 
 " where is he ? who is he ? " 
 
 " It is me, myself! " gasped out Monsieur 
 Eichard, under his breath. The stare of 
 blank astonishment with amusement mixed, 
 with which his proposal was met, was not 
 likely to be ever forgotten by the unlucky 
 suitor, whose white face turned scarlet with 
 shame. 
 
 '' You ? " echoed Monsieur de Yerancour. 
 "You?" And then struggling with the 
 strong sense of the ridiculous, " You ?" he 
 shouted a third time. The apparent fun of 
 the thing fairly mastered him, and he roared
 
 MADERIOISELLE FI^LICIE'S HUSBAND. 255 
 
 with laughter, as he threw himself into the 
 nearest chair and held his sides. 
 
 The Yicomte's fit of hilarity lasted long 
 enough for Monsieur Eichard to determine 
 upon what attitude he should assume. He 
 assumed one of injured dignity, and re- 
 minded his hearer, when he was able to 
 attend to him, that he was exceedingly rich, 
 and that his offer was a proof of his devo- 
 tion to the house of Yerancour. 
 
 Conversation was not easy after this inci- 
 dent, and so the Yicomte soon prepared to 
 take his leave. When he did so, he held 
 out his hand to Monsieiu' Eichard, and 
 spoke again to his young friend with his 
 features not yet quit of the laugh that had 
 conviilsed them. ''There shall be no ran- 
 cour about it ! " said he, with jovial gra- 
 ciousness. " I am sui-e you meant it well.
 
 256 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 but you know it really was too droll. I 
 ought to apologise for laughing so immoder- 
 ately, but, on my honour, it was irresistible. 
 However I shan't forget the intention, and I 
 assure you, you have done me good ; it has 
 been quite a distraction." And, with a 
 good-humoured shake of the hand, he left 
 the room and the house, and once in the 
 street, had another laugh to himself. 
 
 Whether Monsieur de Yerancour would 
 have altogether liked the look with which 
 Monsieur Eichard followed him when his 
 back was turned, is another question.
 
 CHAPTEH XII. 
 
 raoul's distress. 
 
 Just before the end of October a little 
 incident had occurred which had frightened 
 
 D ^' from its propriety," and afforded 
 
 the old cronies of the place an opportunity 
 for declaring that the end of the world was 
 coming. It had become known that Mon- 
 sieur Leon Duprez, that most magnificent 
 ^'cock of the walk," whose example, said 
 the elders, was so disastrous for the young 
 generation, had sailed for Australia, under a 
 feigned name, thus escaping at once from 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 258 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 his debtors and his admiring townsfolk, from 
 his colleagues on various Boards, and from 
 Madame Josephine Le Yaillant, the wife of 
 the Juge de Paix. Naturally this was ^' un 
 evenement/' and, what with one thing and 
 
 another, the little town of D did appear 
 
 to be aping its betters, and losing all right to 
 be denominated a '^ quiet retreat." 
 
 In the course of time, — ^that is, towards 
 the first days of iN'oyember, — what are 
 termed ^' proceedings " were taken against 
 Monsieur Duprez's property, and his house 
 and furniture were to be put up for sale ; 
 though the reports of what his debts in 
 Paris amounted to made any price that 
 might be reached by the disposal of his 
 paternal estate seem a mere ^^ drop in the 
 ocean." 
 
 All this really was very agitating for the
 
 259 
 
 public mind of D . Here, in less than 
 
 a month, had there been a murder, a finan- 
 cial break-up, — or, as the commentators 
 delighted to call it, a " scandal," — and a 
 matrimonial alliance broken off ! 
 
 In the midst of such exciting events the 
 fact that Eaoul de Moryille was going up to 
 Paris to be a clerk in the Marine Ministry, 
 passed unnoticed. And, above all, it entered 
 no one's head that there could be any possi- 
 ble connection between his acceptance of 
 official drudgery in a subordinate position 
 and the ruin of the some-time " cock of the 
 walk " who had been his intimate friend. 
 
 Old Morville spoke but little with his 
 neighbours, but to the few whom he met lie 
 grunted out the announcement of his son's 
 approaching departure, and received a most 
 humiliating meed of pity in exchange ; fur,
 
 260 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 being ■imiversally disliked, pity seemed the 
 natural vexation to inflict upon him, and he 
 got plenty of it. 
 
 Eaoul came to say good-bye to his friends 
 at the Chateau, and found the Yicomte 
 together with his two daughters. 
 
 '' I'm sincerely rejoiced you came to-day 
 instead of to-morrow," said Monsieur de 
 Yerancour. 
 
 ^^ I go to-morrow," interrupted Eaoul. 
 
 ^' If you would let me finish, I meant to 
 say that to-morrow you would have found 
 no one here," continued the Yicomte ; "for 
 we have to drive over to the Grandes 
 Bruyeres, and shall be away the whole day, 
 and I would not have missed seeing you for 
 a great deal, mon gar con. I shall always 
 feel a real interest in you, for you put us 
 all in mind of happier times, — of the times
 
 raoul's distress. 261 
 
 when your mother and theirs," — pointing to 
 his daughters, — '^ were both alive. I shall 
 be heartily glad to hear of your well-doing, 
 and of your advancement." 
 
 At the moment when Monsieur de Yeran- 
 coiu' had mentioned the journey of the next 
 day to the Grandes Bruyeres, a glance, 
 quick as lightning, was exchanged between 
 Eaoul and Yevette, who was seated some- 
 what behind her father. It was only the 
 work of one second, for the girl lowered her 
 eyes instantly to her work, and blushed 
 crimson. 
 
 The leave-taking, when it came, was an 
 affectionate one, and while the two young 
 ladies shook hands cordially with their part- 
 ing guest, the Yicomte embraced him with 
 genuine tenderness, and specially enjoined 
 upon him to write to them fi'om Paris.
 
 262 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 It is, probably, needless to inform my 
 readers that, the next day, only Felicie 
 accompanied her father upon the projected 
 excursion. Yevette discovered an excuse 
 for remaining at home, and at home she 
 stayed, and was virtually alone in the house. 
 Celeste, the all-pervading functionary, was 
 at all times too glad not to be summoned 
 from her lawful dominions in the vast sub- 
 terranean kitchens of the once grand old 
 dwelling, and from her Yevette knew she 
 was safe. Baptiste, the '' man of all work," 
 was absent with the carriage, and had put 
 on his old livery to look like a coachman ; 
 his wife, old Suzette, who was the most 
 dangerous person of the lot, was weeding in 
 the garden, and doing some work set out for 
 her by her spouse in the artichoke beds. 
 She was not to be got rid of, or eluded:
 
 raoul's distress. 263 
 
 that Yevette well knew, for Suzette was a 
 lynx-eyed old woman, and moreover her em- 
 ployment fixed her right opposite the pavi- 
 lion. Nothing was left for it then but 
 to receive Eaoul inside the house. It was 
 for the last time, and Yevette, after a great 
 deal of discussion with herself, and with 
 much of what she believed to be resistance, 
 yielded. 
 
 Eaoul waited behind some trees just out- 
 side the garden wall to the south, — in a 
 spot which no one ever passed. About 
 three o'clock Yevette came, and gave him a 
 signal ; he climbed the wall, followed 
 the girl silently, and in a few seconds was 
 alone with her in the usual sitting-room of 
 the family. 
 
 Mute and mournful were the first greet- 
 ings of the pair ; but, in the midst of what
 
 264 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 was the natural grief attendant on their 
 parting, it seemed as though some other 
 trouble lay hidden, and each marked this in 
 the other. As Eaoul held in his the hand of 
 the shrinking girl, '^Yevette," he exclaimed 
 bitterly, '^ why do you shrink from me in 
 this way ? what is it you shrink from ? '' 
 Yevette cast an anxious glance around her. 
 Eaoul shook his head : ^' It is not that ! " he 
 said impatiently. '^ You are not alarmed 
 lest we should be surprised ; you know that 
 no one will come near this room for hours ; 
 that we are perfectly safe ; that there are 
 half-a-dozen ways of escaping if one heard 
 but a mouse stir. No ; that is not it. I am 
 not deceived by the look that you send 
 wandering out from your eyes all around us, 
 for I see the look that lies behind it. "What 
 is it, Yevette ? what is it ? Sometimes it
 
 raoul's distress. 265 
 
 seems to me as though there were a phan- 
 tom, a dreadful something, that would 
 always rise up between us, even when we are 
 man and wife." And he tried to di-aw her 
 close to him, but she still shrank and trem- 
 bled. " Yevette ! " he ui-ged in a softer 
 tone, pressing her hand in both his own. 
 "I am going. We may not meet for 
 months. It is the last time we can speak 
 together, the very last time ; I have but 
 one hope, but one comfort in the world, — 
 your love. Do you look upon youi' promise 
 to me as a sacred one ? " 
 
 A faint ^' Yes," escaped her lips. 
 
 " Do you count upon mine to you as 
 absolutely as though I had solemnly pledged 
 you my faith at the altar ? " 
 
 This time the girl looked up, and looked 
 straight and unabashed into her lover's eyes,
 
 266 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 as she answered distinctly, ^^ Oh ! that in- 
 deed I do." 
 
 ^' Then, Yevette, my own loye," he 
 rejoined, throwing his arms impetuously 
 round her, '' what can it be that you fear ? 
 For God's sake, tell me. Do not let me go 
 with this weight upon my heart. "What is 
 it that you dread, my wife, my surely to 
 be wedded wife ? " 
 
 *' Oh ! Eaoul ! Eaoul ! " cried she, bury- 
 ing her face in her hands, '^ the sin ! the 
 sin ! the fault that must not be forgiven, — 
 the sin that will never leave us ! " 
 
 He partially loosened his hold of her, and 
 whilst one arm encircled her waist, and he 
 sought with the other to draw her hands 
 from her burning cheeks. ^^ Yevette," he 
 said, in a tone that was almost stem; 
 '^you are wanting in respect to yourself,
 
 eaoul's distress. 267 
 
 wanting in respect to my wife, whom I have 
 worshipped as a saint. "What sin have you 
 ever committed, Yevette ? Youi^ own scru- 
 pulousness is less pure than greater igno- 
 rance would be. I know where the fault 
 lies ; — in the teachings of your convent ; in 
 the gloomy, narrow, false, impious teachings 
 of people who do not know that true love is 
 bright, strong, and pure as steel or flame. 
 Answer me, dear ; is marriage an institu- 
 tion, sanctified by the Church ? Is the mar- 
 riage vow blessed? Is marriage a sacra- 
 ment ? " 
 
 '' Of ^course it is," murmured she, with 
 downcast eyes. 
 
 '' And you believe that when girls give 
 themselves away in marriage to husbands 
 who are at least totally indifferent to them, 
 the bond is a holy one, and the wives are
 
 .268 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 blessed among women ! Do yon ever ask 
 yourself, Yevette, wliy some wives are faith- 
 less?" 
 
 " Because they are tempted by the Evil 
 One," said Vevette timidly. 
 
 '^ 'No, my sweet one," continued Eaoul, 
 looking tenderly at her and softly stroking 
 her hair. ^^ It is because they do not love 
 their husbands, and it is dangerous to 
 ask from the weak "creatures that we are 
 more than is humanly possible." 
 
 '^But, Eaoul," hesitatingly whispered she, 
 ^' it is wrong ; — ^the Church forbids it." 
 
 " God does not forbid it," answered he, 
 gravely. '^ His Word nowhere forbids it. 
 Suppose, my own, we were married this 
 very day, would it still be "wrong that you 
 should love me ? " 
 
 Poor Vevette trembled, and blushed, and
 
 raoul's distress. 269 
 
 looked the very picture of distress and 
 confusion, as she attempted to reply. '' Yes, 
 dear Eaoiil," stammered she, ^'it would 
 always be wrong. It is a sin, — a dreadful 
 sin, — and God will punish us. It is a 
 dreadful sin for a woman to love her hus- 
 band even, as — as — I — love you ! " she 
 faintly uttered at last. 
 
 Eaoul folded her gently, almost pater- 
 nally, to his breast. ^'Poor child!" he 
 said in a very mournful tone ; ^' and so, it 
 is not the circumstances of the love, not its 
 concealment, not the momentary untruth, — 
 no ! it is the love itself which is the sin ! 
 poor little one ! " And he remained silent 
 and thoughtful for some time, with Yevette's 
 head lying upoA his shoulder and his own 
 head resting upon her brow. 
 
 More than an hour went by, and young
 
 270 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Morville tried to make his future bride 
 comprehend her duties to him and to herself, 
 and he succeeded in so far as that she 
 agreed to subordinate all other considera- 
 tions to her passionate devotion for him ; 
 but that the devotion itself was sinful, — 
 that being passionate it must be so, — ^that 
 remained ineradicable from poor little 
 Yevette's creed. 
 
 ^^And now, Eaoul," pleaded the girl in 
 her turn, as the moment for separation came, 
 '^ what is the trouble that is hanging over 
 you ? — for there is one. You have some 
 other care besides the mere grief, deep as it 
 is, of leaving. May I not know it ? " she 
 added, looking up imploringly at him. 
 
 A cloud darkened KaouFs countenance, he 
 pressed his lips together, and drew a long 
 hard breath. '' ]^o !" was his rejoinder.
 
 eaoul's distress. 271 
 
 ^' I cannot share that trouble mth you, 
 Yevette.'' 
 
 " Then you have a trouble ? " she 
 retorted, eagerly. 
 
 ^^Most men have; and there are many 
 that must be borne in solitude and silence. 
 Some burdens may be shared by those we 
 love ; but some there are that it is not good 
 to halve, even with one's wife." The tone 
 in which this was spoken left no room for 
 further intreaty, and threw a deeper chill 
 over the final parting of the lovers than 
 either could have anticipated. 
 
 To the sense of utter loneliness which fell 
 upon Yevette when Eaoul was gone, there 
 was something added which she could not 
 define ; a sort of shadow which prevented 
 the absolute blank. '^ Had Eaoul a secret ? 
 what was it ? " that thought occupied her.
 
 272 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Scarcely had he left the room through the 
 window opening on the terrace, when a 
 knock came at the door. Yevette started, 
 and bade the visitor enter, with a beating 
 heart and quivering voice. It was Mere 
 Jubine's Louison with a letter in her 
 hand. She tendered it to Yevette with 
 a curtsey, saying it was from Monsieur 
 Kichard Prevost. "When opened it was 
 found to contain another letter, addressed 
 to Felicie, and a few lines by which the 
 younger sister was humbly requested to 
 deliver the enclosure to the elder. '' It 
 concerned," observed the writer, '' an act of 
 charity ! " 
 
 '' Is Monsieur' Eichard ill ? " asked 
 Yevette. The girl said she did not know, 
 but did not think he was particularly 
 strong in this damp weather, but that she
 
 kaoul's distkess. 278 
 
 had promised to deliver the letter. And 
 then she went away. 
 
 Vevette in her natural simplicity and her 
 present agitation of spirit, did perhaps 
 think it rather odd that Monsieur Eichard 
 should send a letter to Felicie ; but what 
 failed to strike her as strange was, that Mere 
 Jubine's Louison should be his messenger. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 A PEUDENT YOUNG LADY. 
 
 I HAVE not yet told you how very very 
 pretty Mademoiselle Felicie was. She was 
 not lovely ; — her sister was that ; — neither 
 was she handsome, or beautiful. In each of 
 these words there was something above or 
 something beyond Mademoiselle Felicie. 
 But she was that supremely jolie femme 
 which a Frenchwoman alone ever is. 
 Eather under than over the middle height, 
 the first idea she gave you was that of 
 perfect proportion. She had not the most
 
 A PRUDENT YOUNG LADY. 275 
 
 beautiful throat, nor the most beautiful arm, 
 nor hand, nor shoulder, in the world ; no one 
 particular limb reminded you of a statue ; 
 but the whole went together marvellously 
 well. Each part so fitted the other, the en- 
 semble was so harmonious, so pleasant to the 
 eye, that you were charmed without knowing 
 why, and would have voted to be insup- 
 portable whoever should have attempted 
 to persuade you that you ought not to be 
 so. All the lines were soft and rounded 
 in Felicie's face and figure. In her whole 
 being there was not an angle, nor anything 
 abrupt. She was all grace, all charm. 
 Her voice was insinuating, her movements 
 undulating, her looks caressing. She was 
 precisely that kind of Frenchwoman whom, 
 if you have the most distant dream of re- 
 maining, — however little, — your own mas-
 
 276 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 ter, you had best never meet. She never 
 alarms and never releases you. 
 
 Her grandmother, la belle Madame de 
 Verancour, as old Martin Prevost had told 
 his nephew, had been Felicie's perfect proto- 
 type ; and, Heaven knows, her domestic 
 career had not been one to render the posi- 
 tion of her husband an enviable one. As a 
 young woman of sixteen before the Eevolu- 
 tion, she had been distinguished by one 
 exploit only, but that one was enough. 
 She was reputed to have beaten the famous 
 Due de Lauzun hollow, and to have con- 
 siderably helped to ruin him, whilst abso- 
 lutely vanquishing his inconstancy. She 
 went by the name of ^' La Provinciale qui a 
 roue Lauzun," and after the great catas- 
 trophe, she carried her devastations into her 
 own department, and, till past fifty, levied
 
 A PRUDENT YOUNG LADY. 277 
 
 contributions of all kinds upon the male 
 population for many leagues round. Mar- 
 ried or single, all paid tribute ; and the evil- 
 tongued declared that all classes were ad- 
 mitted alike to compete for her favoui*. 
 Some went even further, and hinted that 
 the present Vicomte was the son of a Sous- 
 Prefet of the Empire, whom she certainly 
 had managed to preserve from dismissal 
 under the Eestoration. 
 
 La belle Madame de Yerancour was not of 
 a religious turn of mind. She did not even 
 grow devout with old age, but died, it was 
 said, in an altogether unsatisfactory manner. 
 Her portrait, painted by Madame Lebrun, in 
 the full costume of her palmy days of Ver- 
 sailles, himg in the drawing-room which 
 the two sisters had arranged at the Chateau ; 
 and when Felicie happened to be alone, she
 
 278 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 would sit intently gazing at tlie image, with 
 a look that was not easily definable. Was 
 it envy, or was it merely curiosity ? 
 
 Except for the powder which disguised 
 the wavy chestnut hair, — that tliick, natu- 
 rally curling, blonde cendre hair, which 
 Felicie dressed so exquisitely, — except for 
 that, everything was alike in the too cele- 
 brated Lady of Yerancour and her descend- 
 ant : the same calm, satin skin, with just 
 enough of delicate colour to prevent its 
 being pale ; the same small nose, with its 
 transparent nostrils ; the same finely-arched 
 eyebrows, and strangely fascinating light 
 hazel eyes ; the same — no ! not quite the 
 same mouth. The epoch had set its stamp 
 there, and Lauzun's mistress had the rich 
 full-blossomed lips that perhaps excused 
 something out of much that they explained ;
 
 A PRUDENT YOUNG LADY. 279 
 
 wMst our Mademoiselle de Yerancour 
 possessed lips so thin that they were hardly 
 more than the edges of the month ; bright 
 red lines closing over twin rows of exqni- 
 sitely pearl-like teeth, — with also the one 
 little fault that they were rather pointed, 
 rather sharp. 
 
 That was the impress of the age. 
 Madame de Yeranconr, la belle, had been 
 lavish in every possible sense. This is not 
 the defect of modern France. One person 
 
 in D had even been nngallant enough, 
 
 it was the Doctor, who disliked the 
 
 people of the Chateau because they were 
 all so healthy that they never ^^ consulted !" 
 — one person had replied to a remark about 
 Felicie's attractions :—" Attractive, may be ; 
 jolie comme un ange, may be ; but that 
 girl's an attorney !"
 
 280 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 Mademoiselle Felicie did certainly give 
 those who had dealings with her a notion 
 that she was practical; but then irregu- 
 larity, let alone prodigality, is accounted 
 such a sin, and to be wanting in order 
 brings down such reproof upon a woman in 
 the France of our day! 
 
 Hitherto Felicie' s field of action had been 
 a limited one, and her adversaries had been 
 mostly female ones. Of these she had not 
 left one unconquered; and at the convent 
 at Poitiers she was the ^'pattern-girl," the 
 example held up by all the sisters, — except- 
 ing only the unfortunate Madame Marie 
 Claire, who took refuge with Yevette ; — and 
 she had been pronounced dogmatically by 
 IN'otre Me]i^ as certain to be an ''honour 
 to her sex," to be eminently wise and pru- 
 dent and circumspect; strong against all
 
 A PRUDENT YOUNG LADY. 281 
 
 sentimentality, and of an equally balanced 
 mind. Monsieur de Verancour, whilst con- 
 gratulating himself upon having such a 
 daughter, was not altogether without a 
 certain feeling of inferiority when in her 
 presence, and it had been affirmed by 
 Celeste, who came herself under Felicie's 
 direct control, that he was afraid of her. 
 
 After Champmorin's withdi^awal from the 
 projected matrimonial engagement, the 
 Vicomte certainly did feel slightly embar- 
 rassed, and had not yet made up his mind 
 as to the precise terms in which he should 
 impart to his daughter that she was not 
 likely to be married as soon as had been 
 supposed. 
 
 She saved him all trouble on that point. 
 
 *^Dear father," she said, one evening, in 
 the sweetest of all possible tones, and pre-
 
 282 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 liminarily kissing him on the forehead, with 
 the most touching grace — "Dear father; I 
 know you have been annoyed, — ^pained, — 
 about something that touches me and my 
 establishment. I can guess what has hap- 
 pened ; and though it is not customary for 
 a young girl to mix herself up in such 
 matters, still ours is an exceptional case, 
 and I feel it incumbent upon me to share 
 with you the burdens laid upon us by our 
 position; — ^by the nobility of our name so 
 sadly at war with the narrowness of our 
 means." 
 
 "You always were an angel, Felicie," 
 exclaimed her father, "but it is not fitting 
 that " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, father," interrupted 
 she ; "it is fitting that we should talk 
 together over all this, for it is not fitting
 
 A PRUDENT YOUNG LADY. 283 
 
 that our name should go a-begging. Tlie 
 daughters of illustrious houses are not con- 
 strained to the same little prudish practices 
 as those of bourgeois origin, and where the 
 honour' of the race is at stake they must lay 
 aside prejudice, and see what is best to be 
 done, just as, in other ages, they would, in 
 the absence of a garrison, have had to defend 
 the chateau, arms in hand. I know poor 
 Monsieur de Champmorin has been obliged 
 to retire." 
 
 Monsieur de Yerancour made a move- 
 ment. 
 
 ^^He is not to be blamed, father," re- 
 sumed Felicie; ^^he must not be blamed; 
 we have nothing to reproach him with, and 
 it would be unseemly and wrong in us to 
 bear the slightest ill-will towards him." 
 
 " I bear him no ill-will whatever," mut-
 
 284 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 tered the Yicomte; ^'but those about him 
 have talked, and will talk, and the position 
 is a very awkward one." 
 
 "Yes, father dear, of course," rejoined 
 Felicie, in her very blandest tones; "of 
 course it is next to impossible to prevent 
 people like notaries and all that class from 
 discussing our affairs ; they will talk of us ; 
 it is their chief pastime ; and, — I don't deny 
 it, — it falls naturally very heavy upon girls 
 like us, to be made the theme of conversa- 
 tion of all the vulgar little bourgeois of such 
 a miserable bit of a place as this ; but that 
 is the fault of provincial towns ; there is no 
 other occupation save that of prying into 
 your neighbours' concerns. If we were in 
 
 Paris, instead of being in D , we should 
 
 escape all, or nearly all, the immediate 
 effects of the disaster."
 
 A PRUDENT YOUNG LADY. 285 
 
 Yevette looked up from her tapestry with 
 amazement. 
 
 " In Paris ?" echoed the Yicomte. "Yes, 
 probably so, everything passes unnoticed in 
 Paris, as in all great centres ; but what 
 earthly chance will there ever be of our 
 being able to get to Paris V 
 
 There was a pause of a few seconds, and 
 then Felicie resumed, in a tone of dis- 
 couragement, after musing for a few 
 moments, "To be sure; it is that per- 
 petual want of money ! " and then there 
 came another silence. 
 
 "Why is it," asked Yevette, timidly, 
 " that so much more money seems required 
 for two people to live upon when they 
 marry than each would find more than 
 sufficient if they remained single ? A single 
 man can live on very little, a single woman
 
 286 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 on less, yet, when it is a question of marry- 
 ing, ten times their income appears not to be 
 enough." 
 
 ^^ Because, my poor child," rejoined 
 Felicie, dogmatically, " well-born people do 
 not marry to live, but to represent. We 
 have to uphold our families and our names ; 
 and our duty is to take care that the 
 children who succeed us are enabled to sup- 
 port their position in life with dignity. We 
 have not yet, in spite of all Eevolutions, 
 come to such a state of tilings as is said to 
 exist amongst the English, where, I believe, 
 two individuals actually marry because they 
 have taken some imaginary fancy for each 
 other, and in their folly count for nothing 
 the fortune and social standing of their 
 children. 'No I- we have not yet come to 
 that."
 
 A PRUDENT YOUNG LADY. 287 
 
 Monsieur de Yerancour gazed at his 
 eldest daughter with admiration, while she 
 propounded her theories of social economy. 
 " All that you say is right and wise," 
 observed he with a sigh, leaning his head 
 upon his hand; "but unluckily it brings 
 about one result — the levelling of every- 
 thing before money. Without riches, what 
 is to be done ? " 
 
 "Yes, dear papa,'' answered Felicie, sub- 
 missively ; "you are right there, as you 
 always are, and I can't help thinking it is 
 wrong and unchristian-like in persons of 
 our caste to despise money as they do " — 
 (oh ! Felicie, when do they so ?) — " to look 
 down upon riches, when riches have so often 
 been brought to our very feet by Provi- 
 dence, in order that by uniting with them 
 we should elevate the rich to our own level,
 
 288 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 and teach tliem to be pious and right-tliink- 
 ing like us." 
 
 ^^ Well, I can only say riches were never 
 brought to my feet," remarked the Yicomte ; 
 ^' nor do I think that I can be accused of 
 ever having scorned them." 
 
 *' If I might venture, dearest father," 
 suggested she, with her most caressing air, 
 ^^ though it is wandering far away from our 
 subject, I would say that you were very 
 hard, quite unmerciful, the other day, to 
 poor Monsieur Eichard." The Yicomte 
 started, and, turning round, stared his 
 daughter full in the face. ^^You quite 
 abashed and hurt him when he was telling 
 you of the great fortune he had inherited, 
 and of what he means to make of Chateau- 
 breville." 
 
 ^''Noy I declare I did not," answered
 
 A PRUDENT YOUXG LADY. 289 
 
 stoutly Monsieur de Yerancour ; ''just the 
 contrary ; I told him that if he had a 
 hundi-ed thousand francs a year he might 
 actually marry a lady." 
 
 ^'Yes," responded Felicie with the 
 sweetest of all feline glances and accents ; 
 " but you did not tell it him — kindly." 
 
 "Humph! as to that," grunted her father, 
 " I don't know how I told it him. I suppose 
 I told it him just as I would have told it 
 any other man of his sort." 
 
 ''Ah! but you see, father, dear, we 
 should be so careful of hurting the feelings 
 of those beneath us. Men don't think of 
 that, — women do. Poor Monsieur Eichard, 
 you see, is somewhere about the richest man 
 in the department, besides being the most 
 amiable and worthy young man in the 
 world. So perfectly right-thinking. In a 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 year's time lie will be Monsieur de Chateau- 
 breville, with a splendid country house, and 
 an establishment in Paris, and if, — as you 
 advised him to do, — he should marry a well- 
 born woman, we shall all go and visit at 
 Chateaubreville, and we should really treat 
 him already as a friend." 
 
 ^^Well, so we do!" ejaculated the Yi- 
 comte ; " don't I let him dine here with us? 
 Treat him as a friend ! Yes ; but I should 
 like to see you, who theorise so finely, treat- 
 ing him as an equal." 
 
 ^^ We are taught that all men are equal," 
 said sweetly Felicie. 
 
 ^^Eut nobody believes it," retorted the 
 Yicomte. '^ Why, I should like to see the 
 rebuff he would get from you, if he ventured 
 to ask you to become his wife. Treat him 
 as an equal indeed ! "
 
 A PRUDENT YOUNG LADY. 291 
 
 "In the first place, papa," rejoined 
 Felicie, gently, but mth a shade more of 
 firmness in her tone, "one does not make 
 one's equal of a man merely by marrying 
 him ; when la grande Mademoiselle married 
 Lauzun, it was out of her power to make 
 him her equal." 
 
 " Maybe," interrupted Monsieur de Yeran- 
 cour; "but he made her pull off his boots 
 all the same." 
 
 " That regards her confessor, and concerns 
 her duties of obedience; but, I repeat it, 
 marriage binds, but does not equalise : in 
 the next place, I would not shi'ink from 
 any sacrifice that should be needed for the 
 good of our family — of oiu' house." 
 
 The Yicomte sprang to his feet, and 
 clapping his two hands upon his breast, 
 roared at her loudly, staring at her with all
 
 292 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 his might. ''You, Felicie, you! You 
 woukl marry Monsieur Eichard?'' 
 
 ''It is Monsieur Eichard who would not 
 marry me, papa," she replied with imper- 
 turbable calmness. 
 
 " You would consent to be Madame Pre- 
 vost," continued her father, unheeding all 
 interruptions. 
 
 "Never, papa," answered she, in a milder 
 tone, and with even more calmness than 
 before; "but I would consent to be Ma- 
 dame de Chateaubreville with a hundred 
 thousand francs of income, and to live half 
 the year in Paris, where the title of Count 
 would be easy to obtain." 
 
 "A pretty thing, indeed, for us," sneered 
 the Yicomte. "A title given by Monsieur 
 Bonaparte ! Why, you would be ashamed 
 to wear it."
 
 A PEUDEXT YOUNG LADY. 293 
 
 '' No, indeed, papa, I should not. 
 Authority is authority always ; and there is 
 our own cousin, the Marquis de Yovray, who 
 has, let himself be made a Chamberlain, — 
 the title means little enough for us, — but 
 it means still the separation from those 
 beneath, from the mass; that is the prin- 
 cipal thing needed." 
 
 Monsieur de Yerancour was silent for 
 some moments, and rubbed his forehead 
 anxiously. "Is it possible, Felicie," he 
 asked at last, "that you can be serious? 
 Is it possible you can mean that you would 
 marry Monsieur Eichard?" 
 
 " Father," she answered, steadily and 
 slowly, " I tell you again there is no 
 sacrifice I will not make to our position. 
 I make it to you, I make it to Yevette." 
 The latter looked up suddenly with an air
 
 294 ALL FOR GREED. 
 
 almost of terror. ^^ It is my duty. We 
 are not on earth to think of ourselves, hut 
 of others. One of my first duties is to 
 think of Yevette. Her turn must come 
 in a year or two." Yevette felt herself 
 grow cold and shudder inwardly. "And 
 how is she to be provided for ?" 
 
 " You are, indeed, a perfect heroine," 
 said the Yicomte, with conviction, and as 
 though humbled at the superior virtue of 
 his child. 
 
 '' Luckily," resumed she, giving an up- 
 ward glance of thanksgiving, " I have 
 always had my duty held up before my 
 eyes, and, after all, duty is a thing which 
 a well-born woman does easily." ' Poor 
 Yevette felt more than ever what a 
 wretched sinner she was. ''The difficulty 
 in all this," added Felicie, after a pause.
 
 A PRUDENT YOUNG LADY. 295 
 
 ^' would be to bring poor Monsieur Eichard 
 to understand that he might ask for my 
 hand." She watched her father with a 
 very curious glance from under her eye- 
 lids whilst uttering these words. ''It is 
 a delicate and difficult negotiation. Per- 
 haps the Abbe Leroy " 
 
 Monsieur de Yerancour waved his hand. 
 "I think," interrupted he, "it would be 
 quite possible to make Monsieur Eichard 
 understand; but, of course, I must reflect 
 on all this. I must take time." 
 
 " Dear father ! " exclaimed the girl, ''of 
 course you must do whatever you think 
 fit. I shall always obey." 
 
 "Oh, Felicie!" cried Yevette, throwing 
 her arms round her sister's neck, when the 
 Yicomte had retired for the night. " Can 
 you? Can you?"
 
 296 ALL FOE GllEED. 
 
 '' A well-born woman can always do 
 whai: is her duty, my dear Yevette/' 
 answered Mademoiselle Felicie, indulging 
 in jnst a very little self-gratulation. 
 
 EKU OF VOL. 1. 
 
 VIETUE AKD CO., PKINTKKS, CITV P.OAU, LONDON.