Twenty-four hours after Daniel had thus left Count Ville-Handry’s palace, pale and staggering, he had not yet entirely¹ recovered from this last blow. He had made a mortal enemy of the man whom it was his greatest interest to manage; and this man, who of his own accord would have parted with him only regretfully, had now turned him disgracefully out of his house.  
He could hardly account to himself for the way in which this had come about. Nay², more; retracing³ step by step, his conduct during the last few days, it appeared to him pitiful, absurd. And then all that had happened seemed to have turned against him.
 
He accused Fate, that blind goddess, who is always blamed by those who have not the courage to blame themselves. He was in this state of mind when there came to him, to his great surprise, a letter from Henrietta. Thus it was she who anticipated him, and who, sure that he would be desperate, had the feminine delicacy⁴ to write to him almost cheerfully.
 
“Immediately after your departure, my dear Daniel, father ordered me up stairs, and decided⁶ that I should stay there till I should become more reasonable. I know I shall stay here a long time.”
 
She concluded thus,—
 
“What we want most of all, oh, my only friend! is courage. Will you have as much as your Henrietta?”
 
“Oh, certainly, certainly! I shall have all that is needed,” exclaimed Daniel, moved to tears.
 
And he vowed⁷ to himself that he would devote himself, heart and soul, to his work, and there find, if not forgetfulness, at least peace. He found, however, that to swear was easier than to do. In spite of all his efforts, he could not fix his thoughts upon any thing else but his misfortunes. The studies which he had formerly⁸ pursued with delight now filled him with disgust. The balance of his whole life was so completely destroyed, that he was not able to restore it.
 
The existence which he now led was that of a desperate man. As soon as he had risen, he hurried to M. de Brevan, and remained in his company as long as he could. Left alone, he wandered at haphazard⁹ along the Boulevards, or up the Champs Elysees. He dined early, hurried home again, and, putting on a rough overcoat which he had worn on board ship, he went to roam around the palace of his beloved.
 
There, behind those heavy, beautifully carved gates, which were open to all comers but to him, lived she who was more to him than his life. If he had struck the flagstones of the sidewalk with the heel of his boots, she would have heard the sound. He could hear the music of her piano; and yet the will of one man placed an abyss between them.
 
He was dying of inaction. It seemed to him atrocious, humiliating, intolerable, to be thus reduced to expecting good or evil fortune from fate, passively, without making an effort, like a man, who having taken a ticket in a lottery¹⁰, and is all anxiety to obtain a large fortune, crosses his arms and waits for the drawing.
 
He was suffering thus for six days, and saw no end of it; when one morning, just as he was going out, his bell rang. He went to open the door.
 
It was a lady, who, without saying a word, swiftly walked in, and as promptly¹¹ shut the door behind her.
 
Although she was wrapped up in a huge cloak which completely hid her figure, in spite of the very thick veil before her face, Daniel recognized her at once.
 
“Miss Brandon!” he exclaimed.
 
In the meantime she had raised her veil, “Yes, it is I,” she replied, “risking another calumny¹² in addition to all the others that have been raised against me, Daniel.”
 
Amazed at a step which seemed to him the height of imprudence, he remained standing¹³ in the anteroom, and did not even think of inviting¹⁴ Miss Brandon to go into the next room, his study.
 
She went in of her own accord, quite aloof¹⁵; and, when he had followed her, she said to him,—
 
“I came, sir, to ask you what you have done with that promise you gave me the other night at my house?”
 
She waited a moment; and, as he did not reply, she went on,—
 
“Come, I see you are like all men, if they pledge their word to another man, who is a match for them, they consider it a point of honor to keep it, but if it is a woman, then they do not keep it, and boast of it!”
 
Daniel was furious; but she pretended not to see it, and said more coldly,—
 
“I—I have a better memory than you, sir; and I mean to prove it to you. I know what has happened at Count Ville-Handry’s house; he has told me all. You have allowed yourself to be carried away so far as to threaten him, to raise your hand against him.”
 
“He was going to strike his daughter, and I held his arm.”
 
“No, sir! my dear count is incapable¹⁶ of such violence; and yet his own daughter had dared to taunt¹⁷ him with his weakness, pretending that he had been induced by me to establish a new industrial company.”
 
Daniel said nothing.
 
“And you,” continued Miss Brandon,—“you allowed Miss Henrietta to say all these offensive and absurd things. I should induce the count to engage in an enterprise where money might be lost! Why? What interest could I have?”
 
Her voice began to tremble; and her beautiful eyes filled with tears.
 
“Interest!” she went on to say, “money! The world can think of no other motive¹⁸ nowadays. Money! I have enough of it. If I marry the count, you know why I do it,—you! And you also know that it depended, and perhaps, at this moment, still depends upon one single man, whether I shall break off that match this very day, now.”
 
As she said this, she looked at him in a manner which would have caused a statue to tremble on its marble pedestal.
 
But he, with his heart full of hatred¹⁹, remained icy, enjoying the revenge which was thus presented to him.
 
“I will believe whatever you wish to say,” he answered in a mocking tone, “if you will answer me a single question.”
 
“Ask, sir.”
 
“The other night, when I had left you, where did you go in your carriage?”
 
He expected to see her confused, turning pale, stammer²⁰. Not at all.
 
“What, you know that?” she said, with an accent of admirable candor²¹. “Ah! I committed an act of almost as great imprudence as I now do. If some fool should see me leave your rooms?”
 
“Pardon me, Miss Brandon, that is no answer to my question. Where did you go?”
 
And as she kept silent, surprised by Daniel’s firmness, he said sneeringly,—
 
“Then you confess that it would be madness to believe you? Let us break off here, and pray to God that I may be able to forget all the wrong you have done me.”
 
Miss Brandon’s beautiful eyes filled with tears of grief or of rage. She folded her hands, and said in a suppliant²² tone,—
 
“I conjure²³ you, M. Champcey, grant me only five minutes. I must speak to you. If you knew”—
 
He could not turn her out; he bowed profoundly before her, and withdrew into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. But he immediately applied²⁴ his eye to the keyhole, and saw Miss Brandon, her features convulsed with rage, threaten him with her closed hand, and leave the room hastily.
 
“She was going to dig another pit for me,” thought Daniel.
 
And the idea that he had avoided it made him, for a part of that day at least, forget his sorrow. But on the following day he found, when he returned home, a formidable document from the navy department, and inside two letters.
 
One informed him that he had been promoted to be a lieutenant²⁵.
 
The other ordered him to report four days hence at Rochefort, on board the frigate²⁶ “Conquest,” which was lying in the roadstead waiting for two battalions²⁷ of marines to be transferred to Cochin China.
 
Daniel had for long years, and with all the eager ambition of a young man, desired the promotion²⁸ which he now obtained. That rank had been the supreme²⁹ goal of all his dreams since the day on which he learned at the navy school the rudiments³⁰ of his perilous³² vocation³³. How often, as he stood leaning against the monkey-railing, and saw boats passing by which carried officers, had he said to himself,—
 
“When I am a navy lieutenant!”
 
Well, now he was a lieutenant. But alas³⁴! his wishes, thus realized, filled him only with disgust and bitterness, like those golden apples, which, at a distance, shine brightly in the branches of magic trees, and under the touch of the hand turn into dust and ashes.
 
For with the news of his promotion came also the fatal order to a distant shore. Why did they send such an order to him, who had at the department an office in which he could render valuable services, while so many of his comrades, waiting idly in port, watched anxiously, and with almost feverish³⁵ impatience³⁶, for a chance to go into active service?
 
“Ah!” he said to himself, his heart filled with rage, “how could I fail to recognize in this abominable³⁷ treachery Miss Brandon’s cunning hand?”
 
First she had closed against him the gates of Count Ville-Handry’s palace, and thus separated him from his beloved Henrietta, so that they could not meet nor speak to each other.
 
But this was not enough for the accursed adventuress. She wanted to raise a barrier between them which should be more than a mere³⁹ moral and social obstacle, one of those difficulties which no human power, no lover’s ingenuity⁴⁰, could overcome,—the ocean and thousands of miles.
 
“Oh, no!” he cried in his anguish⁴¹, “a thousand times no! Rather give up my career, rather send in my resignation.”
 
Hence, the very next day, he put on his uniform, determined⁴² to lay the matter, first before that officer who was his immediate⁵ superior, but resolved, if he should not succeed there, to go up to the minister himself.
 
He had never worn that uniform since the night of a large court-ball, where he had danced with Henrietta. It was nearly a year ago, a few weeks before the death of the Countess Ville-Handry. As he compared his happiness in those days with his present desperate condition, he was deeply moved; and his eyes were still brimful of tears when he reached the navy department, towards ten o’clock in the morning.
 
The officer whom he called upon was an old captain, an excellent man, who had practised the appearance of a grim, stern official so long, that he had finally become in reality what he only wished to appear.
 
Seeing Daniel enter his office, he thought he came to inform him of his promotion, and made a great effort to smile as he hailed him with the words,—
 
“Well, Lieut. Champcey, we are satisfied, I hope?”
 
And, perceiving that Daniel did not wear the epaulets of his new rank, he added,—
 
“But how is that, lieutenant? Perhaps you have not heard yet?”
 
“I beg your pardon, captain.”
 
“Why on earth, then, have you no epaulets?”
 
And he began to frown terribly, considering that such carelessness augured⁴³ ill for the service. Daniel excused himself as well as he could, which was very little, and then boldly approached the purpose of his call.
 
“I have received an order for active service.”
 
“I know,—on board ‘The Conquest,’ in the roadstead at Rochefort, for Cochin China.”
 
“I have to be at my post in four days.”
 
“And you think the time too short? It is short. But impossible to grant you ten minutes more.”
 
“I do not ask for leave of absence, captain; I want the favor—to be allowed to keep my place here.”
 
The old officer could hardly keep his seat.
 
“You would prefer not going on board ship,” he exclaimed, “the very day after your promotion? Ah, come, you are mad!”
 
Daniel shook his head sadly.
 
“Believe me, captain,” he replied, “I obey the most imperative⁴⁴ duty.”
 
Leaning back in his chair, his eyes fixed⁴⁵ on the ceiling, the captain seemed to look for such a duty; then he asked suddenly,—
 
“Is it your family that keeps you?”
 
“If my place can really not be filled by one of my comrades, I shall be compelled to send in my resignation.”
 
The old sailor bounded as he heard that word, and said furiously,—
 
“I told you you were a fool!”
 
In spite of his determination, Daniel was too much troubled not to commit a blunder. He insisted,—
 
“It is a matter of life and death with me, captain. And if you only knew my reasons; if I could tell them”—
 
“Reasons which cannot be told are always bad reasons, sir. I insist upon what I have told you.”
 
“Then, captain, I shall be compelled, to my infinite sorrow, to insist upon offering my resignation.”
 
The old sailor’s brow became darker and darker. He growled⁴⁶.
 
“Your resignation, your resignation! You talk of it very lightly. It remains⁴⁷ to be seen whether it will be accepted. ‘The Conquest’ does not sail on a ple............