"It is a desperate appeal that I make. I understand that your long
experience in business makes you insensible to the misery that you see
every day--"

"Insensible! Say that it breaks my heart, my dear sir."

"But will you not permit yourself to be touched by the misery of a man
who is young, intelligent, courageous, who will drown if a hand is not
held out to help him? For you, the assistance that I ask so earnestly is
nothing--"

"Three thousand francs! Nothing! Bless me! How you talk!"

"For me, if you refuse me, it is death."

Saniel began to speak with his eyes fixed on the hands of his watch, but
presently, carried away by the fever of the situation, he raised them to
look at Caffie, and to see the effect that he produced on him. In this
movement he made a discovery that destroyed all his calculations.

Caffie's office was a small room with a high window looking into the
court; never having been in this office except in the evening, he had not
observed that this window had neither shutters nor curtains of muslin or
of heavier stuff; there was nothing but the glass. To tell the truth,
two heavy curtains of woollen damask hung on either side of the window,
but they were not drawn. Talking to Caffie, who was placed between him
and this window, Saniel suddenly perceived that on the other side of the
court, in the second wing of the building, on the second story, were two
lighted windows directly opposite to the office, and that from there any