“Truly?” he asked, giving way to childish expressions of delight. “Can I tell you all? will you pay—”
“Yes,” she said, repressing the tears which came into her eyes.
“Well, I owe—oh! I dare not—”
“Tell me, father.”
“It is a great deal.”
She clasped her hands, with a gesture of despair.
“I owe thirty thousand francs to Messieurs Protez and Chiffreville.”
“Thirty thousand francs,” she said, “is just the sum I have laid by. I am glad to give it to you,” she added, respectfully kissing his brow.
He rose, took his daughter in his arms, and whirled about the room, dancing her as though she were an infant; then he placed her in the chair where she had been sitting, and exclaimed:—
“My darling child! my treasure of love! I was half-dead: the Chiffrevilles have written me three threatening letters; they were about to sue me,—me, who would have made their fortune!”