"One more favor such as this," Hulot reflected as he crossed the courtyard, "and I am done for!"
The luckless official went to Baron de Nucingen, to whom he now owed a mere trifle, and succeeded in borrowing forty thousand francs, on his salary pledged for two years more; the banker stipulated that in the event of Hulot's retirement on his pension, the whole of it should be devoted to the repayment of the sum borrowed till the capital and interest were all cleared off.
This new bargain, like the first, was made in the name of Vauvinet, to whom the Baron signed notes of hand to the amount of twelve thousand francs.
On the following day, the fateful police report, the husband's charge, the letters—all the papers—were destroyed. The scandalous promotion of Monsieur Marneffe, hardly heeded in the midst of the July fetes, was not commented on in any newspaper.
Lisbeth, to all appearance at war with Madame Marneffe, had taken up her abode with Marshal Hulot. Ten days after these events, the banns of marriage were published between the old maid and the distinguished old officer, to whom, to win his consent, Adeline had related the financial disaster that had befallen her Hector, begging him never to mention it to the Baron, who was, as she said, much saddened, quite depressed and crushed.
"Alas! he is as old as his years," she added.
So Lisbeth had triumphed. She was achieving the object of her ambition, she would see the success of her scheme, and her hatred gratified. She delighted in the anticipated joy of reigning supreme over the family who had so long looked down upon her. Yes, she would patronize her patrons, she would be the rescuing angel who would dole out a livelihood to the ruined family; she addressed herself as "Madame la Comtesse" and "Madame la Marechale," courtesying in front of a glass. Adeline and Hortense should end their days in struggling with poverty, while she, a visitor at the Tuileries, would lord it in the fashionable world.
A terrible disaster overthrew the old maid from the social heights where she so proudly enthroned herself.
On the very day when the banns were first published, the Baron received a second message from Africa. Another Alsatian arrived, handed him a letter, after assuring himself that he spoke to Baron Hulot, and after giving the Baron the address of his lodgings, bowed himself out, leaving the great man stricken by the opening lines of this letter:—
"DEAR NEPHEW,—You will receive this letter, by my calculations,
on the 7th of August. Supposing it takes you three days to send us
the help we need, and that it is a fortnight on the way here, that
brings us to the 1st of September.
"If you can act decisively within that time, you will have saved
the honor and the life of yours sincerely, Johann Fischer.
"This is what I am required to demand by the clerk you have made
my accomplice; for I am amenable, it would seem, to the law, at
the Assizes, or before a council of war. Of course, you understand
that Johann Fischer will never be brought to the bar of any
tribunal; he will go of his own act to appear at that of God.
"Your clerk seems to me a bad lot, quite capable of getting you
into hot water; but he is as clever as any rogue. He says the line
for you to take is to call out louder than any one, and to send
out an inspector, a special commissioner, to discover who is
really guilty, rake up abuses, and make a fuss, in short; but if
we stir up the struggle, who will stand between us and the law?
"If your commissioner arrives here by the 1st of September, and
you have given him your orders, sending by him two hundred
thousand francs to place in our storehouses the supplies we
profess to have secured in remote country places, we shall be
absolutely solvent and regarded as blameless. You can trust the
soldier who is the bearer of this letter with a draft in my name
on a house in Algiers. He is a trustworthy fellow, a relation of
mine, incapable of trying to find out what he is the bearer of. I
have taken measures to guarantee the fellow's safe return. If you
can do nothing, I am ready and willing to die for the man to whom
we owe our Adeline's happiness!"