Nucingen—­threatened by Asie with never seeing her again if he attempted the smallest espionage—­met the woman on his way to the Bourse, in secret, in a wretched entresol in the Rue Nueve-Saint-Marc.  How often, and with what rapture, have amorous millionaires trodden these squalid paths! the pavements of Paris know.  Madame de Saint-Esteve, by tossing the Baron from hope to despair by turns, brought him to the point when he insisted on being informed of all that related to the unknown beauty at ANY COST. Meanwhile, the law was put in force, and with such effect that the bailiffs, finding no resistance from Esther, put in an execution on her effects without losing a day.

Lucien, guided by his adviser, paid the recluse at Saint-Germain five or six visits.  The merciless author of all these machinations thought this necessary to save Esther from pining to death, for her beauty was now their capital.  When the time came for them to quit the park-keeper’s lodge, he took Lucien and the poor girl to a place on the road whence they could see Paris, where no one could overhear them.  They all three sat down in the rising sun, on the trunk of a felled poplar, looking over one of the finest prospects in the world, embracing the course of the Seine, with Montmartre, Paris, and Saint-Denis.

“My children,” said Carlos, “your dream is over.—­You, little one, will never see Lucien again; or if you should, you must have known him only for a few days, five years ago.”

“Death has come upon me then,” said she, without shedding a tear.

“Well, you have been ill these five years,” said Herrera.  “Imagine yourself to be consumptive, and die without boring us with your lamentations.  But you will see, you can still live, and very comfortably too.—­Leave us, Lucien—­go and gather sonnets!” said he, pointing to a field a little way off.

Lucien cast a look of humble entreaty at Esther, one of the looks peculiar to such men—­weak and greedy, with tender hearts and cowardly spirits.  Esther answered with a bow of her head, which said:  “I will hear the executioner, that I may know how to lay my head under the axe, and I shall have courage enough to die decently.”

The gesture was so gracious, but so full of dreadful meaning, that the poet wept; Esther flew to him, clasped him in her arms, drank away the tears, and said, “Be quite easy!” one of those speeches that are spoken with the manner, the look, the tones of delirium.

Carlos then explained to her quite clearly, without attenuation, often with horrible plainness of speech, the critical position in which Lucien found himself, his connection with the Hotel Grandlieu, his splendid prospects if he should succeed; and finally, how necessary it was that Esther should sacrifice herself to secure him this triumphant future.

“What must I do?” cried she, with the eagerness of a fanatic.

“Obey me blindly,” said Carlos.  “And what have you to complain of?  It rests with you to achieve a happy lot.  You may be what Tullia is, what your old friends Florine, Mariette, and la Val-Noble are—­the mistress of a rich man whom you need not love.  When once our business is settled, your lover is rich enough to make you happy.”