uld, before signing the marriage contract of Mlle.
Madeleine, inquire at the Prefecture of Police, and obtain some
information concerning the noble Marquis de Clameran.

"A FRIEND."

Prosper hastened off to post his letter. Fearing that it would not reach
M. Fauvel in time, he walked up to the Rue Cardinal Lemoine, and put it
in the main letter-box, so as to be certain of its speedy delivery.

Until now he had not doubted the propriety of his action.

But now when too late, when he heard the sound of his letter falling
into the box, a thousand scruples filled his mind. Was it not wrong to
act thus hurriedly? Would not this letter interfere with M. Verduret's
plans? Upon reaching the hotel, his doubts were changed into bitter
regrets.

Joseph Dubois was waiting for him; he had received a despatch from his
patron, saying that his business was finished, and that he would return
the next evening at nine o'clock.

Prosper was wretched. He would have given all he had to recover the
anonymous letter.

And he had cause for regret.

At that very hour M. Verduret was taking his seat in the cars at
Tarascon, meditating upon the most advantageous plan to be adopted in
pursuance of his discoveries.

For he had discovered everything, and now must bring matters to a
crisis.

Adding to what he already knew, the story of an old nurse of Mlle. de
la Verberie, the affidavit of an old servant who had always lived in the
Clameran family, and the depositions of the Vesinet husband and wife who
attended M. Lagors at his country house, the latter having been sent to
him by Dubois (Fanferlot), with a good deal of information obtained from
the prefecture of police, he had worked up a complete case, and could
now act upon a chain of evidence without a missing link.

As he had predicted, he had been compelled to search into the distant
past for the first causes of the crime of which Prosper had been the
victim.

The following is the drama, as he wrote it out for the benefit of the
judge of instruction, knowing that it would contain grounds for an
indictment against the malefactors.

XII

THE DRAMA

About two leagues from Tarascon, on the left bank of the Rhone, not
far from the wonderful gardens of M. Audibert, stood the chateau of
Clameran, a weather-stained, neglected, but massive structure.

Here lived, in 1841, the old Marquis de Clameran and his two sons,
Gaston and Louis.

The marquis was an eccentric old man.