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178 old man any longer, this man who thought he was going to live to the end of his days at the Priory and whom I was about to drive out. . . and where was he to go? . . . He had served us faithfully, he was almost one of our family, poor, unable to gain a livelihood otherwise. And I was going to chase him out! . . . Ah! How could I bring myself to do that?

At breakfast Marie seemed nervous. She walked around my chair, unusually excited.

"Beg pardon!" she said to me at last, "I must clear up all my doubts about this matter. . . . Is it true that you are selling the Priory? . . ."

"Yes, Marie."

The old woman opened wide her eyes, stupefied, and, placing her hands on the table, repeated:

"You are selling the Priory?"

"Yes, Marie."

"The Priory where all your family was born? . . . The Priory where your father and your mother died? . . . The Priory, Holy Jesus!"

"Yes, Marie."

She recoiled as if frightened.

"Then you are a wicked son, Monsieur Jean!"

I made no reply. Marie left the dining room and did not speak to me any more.

Two days later, my business having been attended to, the deed signed, I left. . . . My money was hardly enough to last me a month. . . . I was done for! Overwhelming debts, ignoble debts was all that was left to me! . . . Ah! if the train could only carry me on and on, always further on, never to arrive anywhere! . . . It was only in Paris that I reminded myself that I had not even gone to kneel down at the grave of my father and mother.

Juliette received me tenderly. She embraced me passionately.