“Dr. Ramond is downstairs.”
“Ah! let him come up, let him come up,” he said.
It was another piece of good fortune that had come to him. Ramond cried gaily from the door:
“Victory, master! I have brought you your money—not all, but a good sum.”
And he told the story—an unexpected piece of good luck which his father-in-law, M. Leveque, had brought to light. The receipts for the hundred and twenty thousand francs, which constituted Pascal the personal creditor of Grandguillot, were valueless, since the latter was insolvent. Salvation was to come from the power of attorney which the doctor had sent him years before, at his request, that he might invest all or part of his money in mortgages. As the name of the proxy was in blank in the document, the notary, as is sometimes done, had made use of the name of one of his clerks, and eighty thousand francs, which had been invested in good mortgages, had thus been recovered through the agency of a worthy man who was not in the secrets of his employer. If Pascal had taken action in the matter, if he had gone to the public prosecutor’s office and the chamber of notaries, he would have disentangled the matter long before. However, he had recovered a sure income of four thousand francs.
He seized the young man’s hands and pressed them, smiling, his eyes still moist with tears.
“Ah! my friend, if you knew how happy I am! This letter of Clotilde’s has brought me a great happiness. Yes, I was going to send for her; but the thought of my poverty, of the privations she would have to endure here, spoiled for me the joy of her return. And now fortune has come back, at least enough to set up my little establishment again!”
In the expansion of his feelings he held out the letter to Ramond, and forced him to read it. Then when the young man gave it back to him, smiling, comprehending the doctor’s emotion, and profoundly touched by it, yielding to an overpowering need of affection, he caught him in his arms, like a comrade, a brother. The two men kissed each other vigorously on either cheek.
“Come, since good fortune has sent you, I am going to ask another service from you. You know I distrust every one around me, even my old housekeeper. Will you take my despatch to the telegraph office!”
He sat down again at the table, and wrote simply, “I await you; start to-night.”