d Dagobert. "I prefer an attack in broad daylight to an
ambuscade."

"And I assure you," resumed Adrienne, "the few words you have spoken
cause me a vague uneasiness."

"Well, if I must, my dear young lady," replied the Jesuit, appearing to
make a great effort, "since you do not understand my hints, I will be
more explicit; but remember," added he, in a deeply serious tone, "that
you have persevered in forcing me to tell you what you had perhaps
better not have known."

"Speak, Sir, I pray you speak," said Adrienne.

Drawing about him Adrienne, Dagobert, and Mother Bunch, Rodin said to
them in a low voce, and with a mysterious air: "Have you never heard of
a powerful association, which extends its net over all the earth, and
counts its disciples, agents, and fanatics in every class of society
which has had, and often has still, the ear of kings and nobles--which,
in a word, can raise its creatures to the highest positions, and with a
word can reduce them again to the nothingness from which it alone could
uplift them?"

"Good heaven, sir!" said Adrienne, "what formidable association? Until
now I never heard of it."

"I believe you; and yet your ignorance on this subject greatly
astonishes me, my dear young lady."

"And why should it astonish you?"

"Because you lived some time with your aunt, and must have often seen
the Abbe d'Aigrigny."

"I lived at the princess's, but not with her; for a thousand reasons she
had inspired me with warrantable aversion."

"In truth, my dear young lady, my remark was ill-judged. It was there,
above all, and particularly in your presence, that they would keep
silence with regard to this association--and yet to it alone did the
Princess de Saint-Dizier owe her formidable influence in the world,
during the last reign. Well, then; know this--it is the aid of that
association which renders the Abbe d'Aigrigny so dangerous a man.

"By it he was enabled to follow and to reach divers members of your
family, some in Siberia, some in India, others on the heights of the
American mountains; but, as I have told you, it was only the day before
yesterday, and by chance, that, examining the papers of Abbe d'Aigrigny,
I found the trace of his connection with this Company, of which he is
the most active and able chief."

"But the name, sir, the name of this Company?" said Adrienne.

"Well! it is--" but Rodin stopped short.

"It is," repeated Adrienne, who was now as much interested as Dag