The whole assembly were conscious of a shock.
"I dared not tell you, my child," said the father, "but since you have done so much, you will save me, I know, from this last trouble.
Lemulquinier lent me all his savings--the fruit of twenty years' economy--for my last experiment, which failed.

He has come no doubt, finding that I am once more rich, to insist on having them back.

Ah! my angel, give them to him; you owe him your father; he alone consoled me in my troubles, he alone has had faith in me,--without him I should have died." "Monsieur! monsieur!" cried Lemulquinier.
"What is it ?" said Balthazar, turning round.
"A diamond!" Claes sprang into the parlor and saw the stone in the hands of the old valet, who whispered in his ear,-- "I have been to the laboratory." The chemist, forgetting everything about him, cast a terrible look on the old Fleming which meant, "You went before me to the laboratory!" "Yes," continued Lemulquinier, "I found the diamond in the china capsule which communicated with the battery which we left to work, monsieur--and see!" he added, showing a white diamond of octahedral form, whose brilliancy drew the astonished gaze of all present.
"My children, my friends," said Balthazar, "forgive my old servant, forgive me! This event will drive me mad.

The chance work of seven years has produced--without me--a discovery I have sought for sixteen years.
How?
My God, I know not--yes, I left sulphide of carbon under the influence of a Voltaic pile, whose action ought to have been watched from day to day.

During my absence the power of God has worked in my laboratory, but I was not there to note its progressive effects! Is it not awful?
Oh, cursed exile! cursed chance! Alas! had I watched that slow, that sudden--what can I call it ?--crystallization, transformation, in short that miracle, then, then my children would have been richer still.