With a gesture full of dignity, which took in not only Madame Carlat and the waiting-woman who stood at the door, but the absent servants-- "And what of these ?" she said.

"What of these?
You forget them, Monsieur.

You do not think, you cannot have thought, that I would abandon them?
That I would leave them to such mercy as he, defeated, might extend to them?
No, you forgot them." He did not know what to answer, for the jealous eyes of the frightened waiting-woman, fierce with the fierceness of a hunted animal, were on him.

The Carlat and she had heard, could hear.

At last-- "Better one than none!" he muttered, in a voice so low that if the servants caught his meaning it was but indistinctly.