" He took up her letter and re-read it; he saw
his fairest of the fair; he talked with her; then, in the midst of his
ecstacy, a dreadful thought came to him:--
"She thinks me Canalis, and she has a million of money!"
Down went his happiness, just as a somnambulist, having attained the
peak of a roof, hears a voice, awakes, and falls crushed upon the
pavement.
"Without the halo of fame I shall be hideous in her eyes," he cried;
"what a maddening situation I have put myself in!"
La Briere was too much the man of his letters which we have read, his
heart was too noble and pure to allow him to hesitate at the call of
honor. He at once resolved to find Modeste's father, if he were in
Paris, and confess all to him, and to let Canalis know the serious
results of their Parisian jest. To a sensitive nature like his,
Modeste's large fortune was in itself a determining reason. He could
not allow it to be even suspected that the ardor of the
correspondence, so sincere on his part, had in view the capture of a
"dot." Tears were in his eyes as he made his way to the rue
Chantereine to find the banker Mongenod, whose fortune and business
connections were partly the work of the minister to whom Ernest owed
his start in life.
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