The letter just contained these words:
"My daughter is dying—is dying—and my sole hope is in you."
"You must turn back," I cried to the postilions, "return to the stage. And you," I said to the courier, "can you gallop all the way back to Paris, and have horses ready for me at the stages?"
"Certainly, M. le comte."
"Then mount, and be off."
The good fellow turned back at full speed on the road to Paris.
"But, monsieur," said my man of business, in dismay, "you cannot go back to Paris; here we are just at Havre."
I looked at him in astonishment.
"Why not?"
"But this failure, monsieur," he exclaimed; "an hour may lose all, and fifty thousand dollars are at stake!"