I have a strong taste for historical researches." "Ah!" That "ah!" so full of secret thoughts added to his confusion; he gave a foolish laugh and said:-- "You make me talk of myself when I ought only to speak of you." "My mother and your uncle must have finished their conversation, I think," said Marguerite, looking into the parlor through the windows.
"Your mother seems to me greatly changed," said Emmanuel.
"She suffers, but she will not tell us the cause of her sufferings; and we can only try to share them with her." Madame Claes had, in fact, just ended a delicate consultation which involved a case of conscience the Abbe de Solis alone could decide.
Foreseeing the utter ruin of the family, she wished to retain, unknown to Balthazar who paid no attention to his business affairs, part of the price of the pictures which Monsieur de Solis had undertaken to sell in Holland, intending to hold it secretly in reserve against the day when poverty should overtake her children.

With much deliberation, and after weighing every circumstance, the old Dominican approved the act as one of prudence.

He took his leave to prepare at once for the sale, which he engaged to make secretly, so as not to injure Monsieur Claes in the estimation of others.
The next day Monsieur de Solis despatched his nephew, armed with letters of introduction, to Amsterdam, where Emmanuel, delighted to do a service to the Claes family, succeeded in selling all the pictures in the gallery to the noted bankers Happe and Duncker for the ostensible sum of eighty-five thousand Dutch ducats and fifteen thousand more which were paid over secretly to Madame Claes.

The pictures were so well known that nothing was needed to complete the sale but an answer from Balthazar to the letter which Messieurs Happe and Duncker addressed to him.

Emmanuel de Solis was commissioned by Claes to receive the price of the pictures, which were thereupon packed and sent away secretly, to conceal the sale from the people of Douai.
Towards the end of September, Balthazar paid off all the sums that he had borrowed, released his property from encumbrance, and resumed his chemical researches; but the House of Claes was deprived of its noblest ornament.