the change it set in so uniformly against the merchant that he grew desperate. Then the lady herself came to the rescue, and undertook to play for him. As if by magic, the rouleaux of gold and the piles of notes passed over to her side of the table. In short, the conflict was the old one of practice and craft against ignorance and simplicity, and the former as usual won. Though she had at first, however, undertaken to play for him, the merchant was not richer for his handsome partner’s gains. His petitions for his own winnings were of necessity made with a smile, and were adroitly laughed off as jests. The appetite of the Parisian for costly presents was insatiable, and Jerome found himself hopelessly involved, and after a little equivocation and evasion confessed the whole truth to Claude. At that moment, for the first time for thirty years, the house was in a critical position. Money was of great importance. One plan alone appeared feasible. The lost wealth might be regained by an alliance with the winner of it, so Corisande was married “with the consent and approbation” of Claude to Jerome Duravel.
But the partner who had once tasted of the rapture of hazard was not to be bound down again to the comparatively tardy work of legitimate traffic. The elder brother had exacted a pledge from him that he should never enter a gambling house, or stake more than a certain conventional number of francs on a game of cards; but all this foresight was in vain; the wily Madame Duravel acquiesced readily enough in these arrangements, and even advised the elder brother to insist on taking from the younger the security of the promise, but the subject matter of their operations only was changed. The funds were substituted for the cards. Instead of gambling they speculated. . . . .
To the cold and calculating temper of the wife, the most monstrous risks hardly gave any excitement. The agonies of expectation, the reactions of wild hope and profound despair, inflamed the impetuous temper of the husband like fiery wine. Under false names and through numerous agents, they bought in and sold out of the funds, and for some time the star of Corisande was in the ascendant; but, after a while, the narrow and scarcely perceptible which separates enterprise from rashness was crossed. They ventured more and more recklessly. Failure succeeded failure. The politics of the day were full of surprises. A superstitious trust in the fortune of Napoleon had been almost the only guiding principle in Corisande’s creed, but long after this was proved fallacious the devotee clung to her faith. Meanwhile, entirely ignorant of the events which were happening under his eyes, Claude Duravel continued to attend regularly at his office, to direct the legitimate transactions of the firm; to dictate its foreign correspondence, and to watch the fidelity of its servants. Since the sudden marriage the brothers had lived much apart. Jerome and Corisande still occupied a suite of apartments in the Hotel Duravel, but they seldom saw the head of the house, save at stated times. It had been an important point in Madame’s policy to secure the good opinion of Claude, and considering that she had to overcome almost the strongest prejudices of his nature, she succeeded amazingly. He had viewed the alliance at first with horror, but when such large accessions of wealth were offered to the firm thereby, he was a little softened. His life was too secluded for him to hear the shameful rumours which were afloat about his sister-in-law. He held gamblers in sovereign contempt, but then those were gamblers who lost. He could not choose but honour luck so brilliant and conspicuous as that of Corisande. These things being so, the hostility between the two took the gentler form of wary neutrality, and wary neutrality insensibly glided into a courteous, if not a cordial relation before many months were over. Madame Corisande was fascinating enough to all; how can one wonder then that when she set her mind on pleasing the attempt was successful?
So things slipped on for five years, all externally calm and secure, but in that time none can tell the strange vicissitudes of anxiety and exultation through which Jerome passed!
Suddenly, one morning, in the October of 1804, a strange and startling report spread over Havre! It was caught up, and passed like lightning from lip to lip. Amongst the merchants and people of leisure alike it was the theme of the hour. They had had political subjects enough to discuss that year, but neither the murder of D’Enghien, nor the change of English policy under Pitt, nor the assumption of the title of Emperor by him who had long wielded imperial power, created half so lively an interest in the good town of Havre, as these tidings about their great merchant. They were so romantic, so contradictory, so mysterious! Sometimes people shuddered over the report as that of a murder; at other times they quaked lest their Crœsus should prove a fraudulent absconder. Again, some deplored it as a suicide, while a fourth party settled the merchant’s fate by whispering the magic name of Fouché. All was uncertainty and conjecture, but one fact—Monsieur Claude Duravel had disappeared, and was nowhere to be found. The authorities, and the missing man’s relatives who investigated the affair, could only glean very scanty particulars. On the morning of the 18th of October, the unfortunate man had been at the counting-house, as usual. He had looked exactly as he generally looked, and had done his work in precisely the accustomed manner. About four o’clock he went home, dined alone, as his brother and his wife were out of town, after dinner sat reading for an hour or so. Later than this there was no decided information. One of the servants, an under-gardener, thought he had observed him pass through the orangery, but was not positive. It was certain he rang the bell for the dessert to be removed, and the footman who answered the summons was the last person who swore to seeing him. Jerome and his wife made every effort to find the lost. Large rewards were offered to the person who should discover any clue, however slender. The lake in the grounds was dragged. The vessels leaving the port were searched. The haunts of desperadoes in the city thoroughly scoured. But money, time, and diligence were all wasted. The police
