Polidori interrupted the notary, and said to the priest, "You will see, M. l'Abbé, by the choice of the director of this establishment, whether Jacques knows how to repair the wrong which he has involuntarily done. You know that by an error which he deplores, he had falsely accused his cashier of taking a sum which he afterward discovered."
"Doubtless."
"Well! it is to this honest young man, François Germain, that Jacques assigns the life governorship of this bank, with a salary of four thousand francs. Is it not admirable, M. l'Abbé?"
"Nothing astonishes me now, or, rather, nothing has astonished me," said the priest. "The fervent piety, the virtues of our worthy friend, could hardly fail of such a result. To consecrate all his fortune to such an institution—ah! it is admirable!"
"More than a million, M. l'Abbé," said Polidori, "more than a million, amassed by dint of order, economy, and probity; and yet there are those who accuse Jacques of avarice! How, said they, his office brings him in fifty or sixty thousand francs a year, and he lives like a miser!"
"To such as these," replied the abbé, with enthusiasm, "I would answer: During fifteen years he has lived like a poor man, in order to be able at the present time magnificently to solace the poor."
"Be, then, at least proud and joyous at the good you have done," cried Polidori, addressing Jacques Ferrand, who, gloomy and cast down, seemed absorbed in profound meditation.
"Alas!" said the abbé, sadly, "it is not in this world that one receives the recompense of so many virtues; he has a more exalted ambition."
"Jacques," said Polidori, touching the notary lightly on the shoulder, "finish your reading." The notary started, passed his hand over his face, and said to the priest:
"Pardon, M. l'Abbé, but I was thinking—I was thinking of the immense extension that this bank for the poor might have from the returned loans. If the loans of each year were regularly repaid at the end of four years, it would have already loaned about fifty thousand crowns on pledge or gratuitously. It is enormous—enormous; and I felicitate myself on it," he added, thinking of the value of the sacrifice imposed upon him. He resumed: "I was, I believe, at—"