matter," I said. "Are you aware, mademoiselle,
why M. Vilain was arrested, and of what he is accused?"

"Perfectly," she answered; "and that he is innocent. More!" she
continued, clasping her hands, and looking at me bravely, "I am willing
both to tell you where he is, and to bring him, if you please, into
your presence."

I stared at her. "You will bring him here?" I said.

"Within five minutes," she answered, "if you will first hear me."

"What are you to him?" I said.

She blushed vividly. "I shall be his wife or no one's," she said; and
she looked a moment at my wife.

"Well, say what you have to say!" I cried roughly.

"This paper, which it is alleged that he stole--it was not found on
him; but in the hollow of a tree."

"Within three paces of him! And what was he doing there?"

"He came to meet me," she answered, her voice trembling slightly. "He
could have told you so, but he would not shame me."

"This is true?" I said, eyeing her closely.

"I swear it!" she answered, clasping her hands. And then, with a
sudden flash of rage, "Will the other woman swear to her tale?" she
cried.

"Ha!" I said, "what other woman?"

"The woman who sent you to that place," she answered. "He would not
tell me her name, or I would go to her now and wring the truth from
her. But he confessed to me that he had let a woman into the secret of
our meeting; and this is her work."

I stood a moment pondering, with my eyes on the girl's excited face,
and my thoughts, following this new clue through the maze of recent
events; wherein I could not fail to see that it led to a very different
conclusion from that at which I had arrived. If Vilain had been
foolish enough to wind up his love-passages with Mademoiselle de Mars
by confiding to her his passion for the Figeac, and even the place and
time at which the latter was so imprudent as to meet him, I could fancy
the deserted mistress laying this plot; and first placing the packet
where we found it, and then punishing her lover by laying the theft at
his door. True, he might be guilty; and it might be only confession and
betrayal on which jealousy had thrust her. But the longer I considered
the whole of the circumstances, as well as the young man's character,
and the lengths to which I knew a woman's passion would carry her, the
more probable seemed the explanation I had just received.

Nevertheless, I did not at once express my opinion; but veiling the
chagrin