le
ships and four hundred thousand men. The most difficult thing of all in
expectant politics is to know when a power that totters will fall; but,
my old man, Bonaparte's power is not tottering, it is in the ascendant.
Don't you think that Fouche may be sounding you so as to get to the
bottom of your mind, and then get rid of you?"

"No; I am sure of my go-between. Besides, Fouche would never, under
those circumstances, send me such fellows as these; he would know they
would make me suspicious."

"They alarm me," said Grevin. "If Fouche does not distrust you, and is
not seeking to probe you, why does he send them? Fouche doesn't play
such a trick as that without a motive; what is it?"

"What decides me," said Malin, "is that I should never be easy with
those two Simeuse brothers in France. Perhaps Fouche, who knows how I am
placed towards them, wants to make sure they don't escape him, and hopes
through them to reach the Condes."

"That's right, old fellow; it is not under Bonaparte that the present
possessor of Gondreville can be ousted."

Just then Malin, happening to look up, saw the muzzle of a gun through
the foliage of a tall linden.

"I was not mistaken, I thought I heard the click of a trigger," he said
to Grevin, after getting behind the trunk of a large tree, where the
notary, uneasy at his friend's sudden movement, followed him.

"It is Michu," said Grevin; "I see his red beard."

"Don't let us seem afraid," said Malin, who walked slowly away, saying
at intervals: "Why is that man so bitter against the owners of this
property? It was not you he was covering. If he overheard us he had
better ask the prayers of the congregation! Who the devil would have
thought of looking up into the trees!"

"There's always something to learn," said the notary. "But he was a good
distance off, and we spoke low."

"I shall tell Corentin about it," replied Malin.

CHAPTER III. THE MASK THROWN OFF

A few moments later Michu returned home, his face pale, his features
contracted.

"What is the matter?" said his wife, frightened.

"Nothing," he replied, seeing Violette whose presence silenced him.

Michu took a chair and sat down quietly before the fire, into which
he threw a letter which he drew from a tin tube such as are given to
soldiers to hold their papers. This act, which enabled Marthe to draw
a long breath like one relieved of a great burden, greatly puzzled
Violette. The bailiff laid his gun on the