“Yes; I will accompany you.”
“But did you not read that I must be alone?” said Julie.
“And you shall be alone,” replied the young man. “I will await you at the corner of the Rue du Musée, and if you are so long absent as to make me uneasy, I will hasten to rejoin you, and woe to him of whom you shall have cause to complain to me!”
“Then, Emmanuel?” said the young girl with hesitation, “it is your opinion that I should obey this invitation?”
“Yes. Did not the messenger say your father’s safety depended upon it?”
“But what danger threatens him, then, Emmanuel?” she asked.
Emmanuel hesitated a moment, but his desire to make Julie decide immediately made him reply.
“Listen,” he said; “today is the 5th of September, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“Today, then, at eleven o’clock, your father has nearly three hundred thousand francs to pay?”
“Yes, we know that.”
“Well, then,” continued Emmanuel, “we have not fifteen thousand francs in the house.”
“What will happen then?”
“Why, if today before eleven o’clock your father has not found someone who will come to his aid, he will be compelled at twelve o’clock to declare himself a bankrupt.”