“Are you satisfied with your father?”

“You are worthy of him,” said Marguerite, pointing to the portrait of Van Claes.

The next morning Balthazar, followed by Lemulquinier, went up to the laboratory, as if to bid farewell to the hopes he had so fondly cherished, and which in that scene of his toil were living things to him.  Master and man looked at each other sadly as they entered the garret they were about to leave, perhaps forever.  Balthazar gazed at the various instruments over which his thoughts so long had brooded; each was connected with some experiment or some research.  He sadly ordered Lemulquinier to evaporate the gases and the dangerous acids, and to separate all substances which might produce explosions.  While taking these precautions, he gave way to bitter regrets, like those uttered by a condemned man before going to the scaffold.

“Here,” he said, stopping before a china capsule in which two wires of a voltaic pile were dipped, “is an experiment whose results ought to be watched.  If it succeeds—­dreadful thought!—­my children will have driven from their home a father who could fling diamonds at their feet.  In a combination of carbon and sulphur,” he went on, speaking to himself, “carbon plays the part of an electro-positive substance; the crystallization ought to begin at the negative pole; and in case of decomposition, the carbon would crop into crystals—­”

“Ah! is that how it would be?” said Lemulquinier, contemplating his master with admiration.

“Now here,” continued Balthazar, after a pause, “the combination is subject to the influence of the galvanic battery, which may act—­”

“If monsieur wishes, I can increase its force.”

“No, no; leave it as it is.  Perfect stillness and time are the conditions of crystallization—­”

“Confound it, it takes time enough, that crystallization,” cried the old valet impatiently.

“If the temperature goes down, the sulphide of carbon will crystallize,” said Balthazar, continuing to give forth shreds of indistinct thoughts which were parts of a complete conception in his own mind; “but if the battery works under certain conditions of which I am ignorant—­it must be watched carefully—­it is quite possible that—­ Ah! what am I thinking of?  It is no longer a question of chemistry, my friend; we are to keep accounts in Bretagne.”

Claes rushed precipitately from the laboratory, and went downstairs to take a last breakfast with his family, at which Pierquin and Monsieur de Solis were present.  Balthazar, hastening to end the agony Science had imposed upon him, bade his children farewell and got into the carriage with his uncle, all the family accompanying him to the threshold.  There, as Marguerite strained her father to her breast with a despairing pressure, he whispered in her ear, “You are a good girl; I bear you no ill-will”; then she darted through the court-yard into the parlor, and flung herself on her knees upon the spot where her mother had died, and prayed to God to give her strength to accomplish the hard task that lay before her.  She was already strengthened by an inward voice, sounding in her heart the encouragement of angels and the gratitude of her mother, when her sister, her brother, Emmanuel, and Pierquin came in, after watching the carriage until it disappeared.