Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/380

346 the Nemours bridge, one of the traces became unhooked. My wife had no servant behind the carriage; the horses could smell their stable; my son, fearing their impatience, would not allow the coachman to get down, and jumped out to fasten the trace. Just as he was turning round to get up beside his mother, the horses started off, Désiré was not in time to squeeze himself against the parapet, the steps cut his legs, he fell and the back wheel went over his body. The express which is hastening to Paris to fetch the leading surgeons will take you this letter, which my son, in the midst of his agony, has told me to write to you, in order to inform you of our entire submission to your decision in the business that was bringing him home. Until my last breath, I shall be grateful to you for the way in which you have proceeded, and I will justify your confidence.”

“.”

The town of Nemours was distracted at this terrible event. The sympathetic crowd, at the gate of the Minorets’ house, told Savinien that his revenge had been taken in hand by one more powerful than himself. The nobleman went at once to Ursule’s, where the curé, as well as the young girl, were in greater terror than surprise. The next day, after the first dressing, when the doctors and surgeons from Paris had given their unanimous opinion upon the necessity of amputating both legs, Minoret came, dejected, pale, undone, accompanied by the curé, to Ursule’s house, where were Bongrand and Savinien.

“Mademoiselle,” he said to her, “I have done you great wrong; but, if all the injury I have done cannot be completely amended, I can atone for some of it. My wife and I, we have made a vow to give you our entire estate of Le Rouvre in the event of