The woman had a rare heart and there
was that about Jean Jacques which made her want to help him. She had no
clear idea as to how that could be done, but she had held his hand at any
rate, and he had seemed the better for it. Virginie had only an objective
view of things; and if she was not material, still she could best express
herself through the medium of the senses.
There were others besides her who shed tears also--those who saw Jean
Jacques' chief asset suddenly disappear in flame and smoke and all his
other assets become thereby liabilities of a kind; and there were many
who would be the poorer in the end because of it. If Jean Jacques went
down, he probably would not go alone. Jean Jacques had done a good
fire-insurance business over a course of years, but somehow he had not
insured himself as heavily as he ought to have done; and in any case the
fire-policy for the mill was not in his own hands. It was in the
safe-keeping of M. Mornay at Montreal, who had warned M. Fille of the
crisis in the money-master's affairs on the very day that the crisis
came.
No one ever knew how it was that the mill took fire, but there was one
man who had more than a shrewd suspicion, though there was no occasion
for mentioning it. This was Sebastian Dolores. He had not set the mill
afire. That would have been profitable from no standpoint, and he had no
grudge against Jean Jacques.
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