ourage, if he had been as I pictured him
to myself and as he himself told me that he had long been: bearing the
marks of vice and dissipation, coarse, deteriorated.

"But, though he was utterly changed in appearance, so much so that I
could hardly recognize him, there was, from the point of view of--how
shall I put it?--from the moral point of view, an undoubted improvement.
You had helped him, lifted him; and, though his mode of life was hateful
to me, nevertheless he retained a certain self-respect... a sort of
underlying decency that showed itself on the surface once more... He was
gay, careless, happy... And he used to talk of you with such affection!"

She picked her words, betraying her embarrassment, not daring, in
Lupin's presence, to condemn the line of life which Gilbert had selected
and yet unable to speak in favour of it.

"What happened next?" asked Lupin.

"I saw him very often. He would come to me by stealth, or else I went
to him and we would go for walks in the country. In this way, I was
gradually induced to tell him our story, of his father's suicide and
the object which I was pursuing. He at once took fire. He too wanted
to avenge his father and, by stealing the crystal stopper, to avenge
himself on Daubrecq for the harm which he had done him. His first
idea--from which, I am bound to tell you, he never swerved--was to
arrange with you."

"Well, then," cried Lupin, "he ought to have...!"

"Yes, I know... and I was of the same opinion. Unfortunately, my poor
Gilbert--you know how weak he is!--was under the influence of one of his
comrades."

"Vaucheray?"

"Yes, Vaucheray, a saturnine spirit, full of bitterness and envy, an
ambitious, unscrupulous, gloomy, crafty man, who had acquired a great
empire over my son. Gilbert made the mistake of confiding in him and
asking his advice. That was the origin of all the mischief. Vaucheray
convinced him and convinced me as well that it would be better if we
acted by ourselves. He studied the business, took the lead and finally
organized the Enghien expedition and, under your direction, the burglary
at the Villa Marie-Therese, which Prasville and his detectives had been
unable to search thoroughly, because of the active watch maintained by
Leonard the valet. It was a mad scheme. We ought either to have trusted
in your experience entirely, or else to have left you out altogether,
taking the risk of fatal mistakes and dangerous hesitations. But we
could no