yes.

"You see that he will live!" cried Juliette.

The advocate shook his head feebly, and, for a moment, he tossed about
painfully on the bed, passing his right hand first under his coat, and
then under his pillow. He even succeeded in turning himself half-way
towards the wall and then back again.

Upon a sign, which was at once understood, someone placed another pillow
under his head. Then in a broken, hissing voice, he uttered a few words:
"I am the assassin," he said. "Write it down, I will sign it; it will
please Albert. I owe him that at least."

While they were writing, he drew Juliette's head close to his lips.

"My fortune is beneath the pillow," he whispered. "I give it all to
you."

A flow of blood rose to his mouth; and they all thought him dead. But he
still had strength enough to sign his confession, and to say jestingly
to M. Tabaret, "Ah, ha, my friend, so you go in for the detective
business, do you! It must be great fun to trap one's friends in person!
Ah, I have had a fine game; but, with three women in the play, I was
sure to lose."

The death struggle commenced, and, when the doctor arrived, he could
only announce the decease of M. Noel Gerdy, advocate.

CHAPTER XX.

Some months later, one evening, at old Mademoiselle de Goello's house,
the Marchioness d'Arlange, looking ten years younger than when we saw
her last, was giving her dowager friends an account of the wedding of
her granddaughter Claire, who had just married the Viscount Albert de
Commarin.

"The wedding," said she, "took place on our estate in Normandy, without
any flourish of trumpets. My son-in-law wished it; for which I think he
is greatly to blame. The scandal raised by the mistake of which he had
been the victim, called for a brilliant wedding. That was my opinion,
and I did not conceal it. But the boy is as stubborn as his father,
which is saying a good deal; he persisted in his obstinacy. And my
impudent granddaughter, obeying beforehand her future husband, also
sided against me. It is, however, of no consequence; I defy anyone to
find to-day a single individual with courage enough to confess that he
ever for an instant doubted Albert's innocence. I have left the young
people in all the bliss of the honeymoon, billing and cooing like a
pair of turtle doves. It must be admitted that they have paid dearly
for their happiness. May they be happy then, and may they have lots of
children, for they will have no difficu