It was, indeed, affection triumphant over inveterate vice.

At this instant, the clocks struck midnight.
"It is too late now," said Madame Descoings.
"Oh!" cried Joseph, "here are your cabalistic numbers." The artist sprang at the paper, and rushed headlong down the staircase to pay the stakes.

When he was no longer present, Agathe and Madame Descoings burst into tears.
"He has gone, the dear love," cried the old gambler; "but it shall all be his; he pays his own money." Unhappily, Joseph did not know the way to any of the lottery-offices, which in those days were as well known to most people as the cigarshops to a smoker in ours.

The painter ran along, reading the street names upon the lamps.

When he asked the passers-by to show him a lottery-office, he was told they were all closed, except the one under the portico of the Palais-Royal which was sometimes kept open a little later.