heritance
to them, but it was two hundred and twelve millions which the Jesuit
representatives (Father d'Aigrigny and his secretary, Rodin) were amazed
to hear their nursling placed in possession of. They had the treasure
in their hands, in fact, when a woman of strangely sad beauty had
mysteriously entered the room where the will had been read, and laid
a paper before the notary. It was a codicil, duly drawn up and signed,
deferring the carrying out of the testament until the first day of June
the same year. The Jesuits fled from the house, in rage and intense
disappointment. Father d'Aigrigny was so stupor-stricken at the defeat,
that he bade his secretary at once write off to Rome that the Rennepont
inheritance had escaped them, and hopes to seize it again were utterly
at an end. Upon this, Rodin had revolted, and shown that he had
authority to command where he had, so far, most humbly obeyed. Many such
spies hang about their superior's heels, with full powers to become the
governor in turn, at a moment's notice. Thenceforward, he, Rodin, had
taken the business into his own hands. He had let Rose and Blanche Simon
out of the convent into their father's arms. He had gone in person to
release Adrienne de Cardoville from the asylum. More, having led her to
sigh for Prince Djalma, he prompted the latter to burn for her.

He let not M. Hardy escape. A friend whom the latter treated as a
brother, had been shown up to him as a mere spy of the Jesuits; the
woman whom he adored, a wedded woman, alas! who had loved him in spite
of her vows, had been betrayed. Her mother had compelled her to hide her
shame in America, and, as she had often said--"Much as you are endeared
to me, I cannot waver between you and my mother!" so she had obeyed,
without one farewell word to him. Confess, Rodin was a more dextrous
man than his late master! In the pages that ensue farther proofs of his
superiority in baseness and satanic heartlessness will not be wanting.

CHAPTER III. THE ATTACK.

On M. Hardy's learning from the confidential go-between of the lovers,
that his mistress had been taken away by her mother, he turned from
Rodin and dashed away in a post carriage. At the same moment, as loud
as the rattle of the wheels, there arose the shouts of a band of workmen
and rioters, hired by the Jesuit's emissaries, coming to attack Hardy's
operatives. An old grudge long existing between them and a rival
manufacturer's--Baron Tripeaud--labo