"I am going away to-morrow, and I want to bid him good-bye." Emmanuel glanced at Marguerite, who held down her head.

It was a gloomy day for the family; every one was sad, and tried to repress both thoughts and tears.

This was not an absence, it was an exile.
All instinctively felt the humiliation of the father in thus publicly declaring his ruin by accepting an office and leaving his family, at Balthazar's age.

At this crisis he was great, while Marguerite was firm; he seemed to accept nobly the punishment of faults which the tyrannous power of genius had forced him to commit.

When the evening was over, and father and daughter were again alone, Balthazar, who throughout the day had shown himself tender and affectionate as in the first years of his fatherhood, held out his hand and said to Marguerite with a tenderness that was mingled with despair,-- "Are you satisfied with your father ?" "You are worthy of HIM," said Marguerite, pointing to the portrait of Van Claes.
The next morning Balthazar, followed by Lemulquinier, went up to the laboratory, as if to bid farewell to the hopes he had so fondly cherished, and which in that scene of his toil were living things to him.