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"Monsieur," said Juana, "you cannot escape. The whole town is here." Diard ran from window to window with the useless activity of a captive bird striking against the panes to escape. Juana stood silent and thoughtful. "Juana, dear Juana, help me! give me, for pity's sake, some advice." "Yes," said Juana, "I will; and I will save you." "Ah! you are always my good angel."
She used her influence to make Diard resign his various pretensions and to show him, as a haven, the peaceful and consoling life of home. Evils came from society why not banish it? In his home Diard found peace and respect; he reigned there. She felt herself strong to accept the trying task of making him happy, he, a man dissatisfied with himself.
They all three stopped and looked at Diard, who stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets; overcome, perhaps, by finding himself in this calm scene, so softly lighted, so beautiful with the faces of his wife and children. It was a living picture of the Virgin between her son and John. "Juana, I have something to say to you."
Diard, confident in his luck, renewed acquaintance with Montefiore. The latter received him very coldly, but nevertheless they played together, and Diard lost every penny that he possessed, and more. "My dear Montefiore," said the ex-quartermaster, after making a tour of the salon, "I owe you a hundred thousand francs; but my money is in Bordeaux, where I have left my wife."
Montefiore may have felt, like Diard, a desire to breathe the open air and recover from such emotions in a walk. The latter proposed to the marquis to come home with him to take a cup of tea and get his money. "But Madame Diard?" said Montefiore. "Bah!" exclaimed the husband.
At first, inspired by a real love, by one of those passions which for the time being change even odious characters and bring to light all that may be noble in a soul, Diard behaved like a man of honor. He forced Montefiore to leave the regiment and even the army corps, so that his wife might never meet him during the time they remained in Spain.
"Your children implore you," she said, putting the pistol beneath his hand. "But my good Juana, my little Juana, do you think Juana! is it so pressing? I want to kiss you." The gendarmes were mounting the staircase. Juana grasped the pistol, aimed it at Diard, holding him, in spite of his cries, by the throat; then she blew his brains out and flung the weapon on the ground.
Francisque was Diard, and Juana's incessant care and watchfulness betrayed her desire to correct in the son the vices of the father and to encourage his better qualities.
I ask of you one kindness: enable me to obtain a passport for Spain." "One moment!" cried the examining judge. "Madame, what has become of the money stolen from the Marquis de Montefiore?" "Monsieur Diard," she replied, "said something to me vaguely about a heap of stones, under which he must have hidden it." "Where?" "In the street." The two magistrates looked at each other.
"You are really free to go," she said. And he went immediately. "Alas! monsieur," said the girl, turning to Diard, "I thank you with admiration. But my husband is in heaven. To-morrow I shall enter a convent " "Juana, my Juana, hush!" cried the mother, clasping her in her arms. Then she whispered in the girl's ear. "You must have another husband." Juana turned pale.
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