Dreadful discipline of suffering, which is never lacking to angelic natures! The love which rests on money or on vanity is the most persevering of passions.

Pierquin resolved to win the heiress without delay.

A few days after Madame Claes's death he took occasion to speak to Marguerite, and began operations with a cleverness which might have succeeded if love had not given her the power of clear insight and saved her from mistaking appearances that were all the more specious because Pierquin displayed his natural kindheartedness,--the kindliness of a notary who thinks himself loving while he protects a client's money.

Relying on his rather distant relationship and his constant habit of managing the business and sharing the secrets of the Claes family, sure of the esteem and friendship of the father, greatly assisted by the careless inattention of that servant of science who took no thought for the marriage of his daughter, and not suspecting that Marguerite could prefer another,--Pierquin unguardedly enabled her to form a judgment on a suit in which there was no passion except that of self-interest, always odious to a young soul, and which he was not clever enough to conceal.

It was he who on this occasion was naively above-board, it was she who dissimulated,--simply because he thought he was dealing with a defenceless girl, and wholly misconceived the privileges of weakness.
"My dear cousin," he said to Marguerite, with whom he was walking about the paths of the little garden, "you know my heart, you understand how truly I desire to respect the painful feelings which absorb you at this moment.