"A diamond!"
Claes sprang into the parlor and saw the stone in the hands of the old
valet, who whispered in his ear,--
"I have been to the laboratory."
The chemist, forgetting everything about him, cast a terrible look on
the old Fleming which meant, "You went before me to the laboratory!"
"Yes," continued Lemulquinier, "I found the diamond in the china
capsule which communicated with the battery which we left to work,
monsieur--and see!" he added, showing a white diamond of octahedral
form, whose brilliancy drew the astonished gaze of all present.
"My children, my friends," said Balthazar, "forgive my old servant,
forgive me! This event will drive me mad. The chance work of seven
years has produced--without me--a discovery I have sought for sixteen
years. How? My God, I know not--yes, I left sulphide of carbon under
the influence of a Voltaic pile, whose action ought to have been
watched from day to day. During my absence the power of God has worked
in my laboratory, but I was not there to note its progressive effects!
Is it not awful? Oh, cursed exile! cursed chance! Alas! had I watched
that slow, that sudden--what can I call it?--crystallization,
transformation, in short that miracle, then, then my children would
have been richer still. Though this result is not the solution of the
Problem which I seek, the first rays of my glory would have shone from
that diamond upon my native country, and this hour, which our
satisfied affections have made so happy, would have glowed with the
sunlight of Science.
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