ul
report. Finally, I have at the Fauvels another means of investigation
which I will reveal to you later."

"I understand it all now," murmured Prosper.

"And what have you been doing during my absence, my young friend?" asked
M. Verduret; "have you heard any news?"

At this question Prosper turned crimson. But he knew that it would never
do to keep silent about his imprudent step.

"Alas!" he stammered, "I read in a newspaper that Clameran was about to
marry Madeleine; and I acted like a fool."

"What did you do?" inquired Verduret anxiously.

"I wrote an anonymous letter to M. Fauvel, informing him that his wife
was in love with Raoul--"

M. Verduret here brought his clinched fist down upon the little table
near by, with such violence that the thin plank was shivered. His
cheerful face in an instant clouded over.

"What folly!" he exclaimed, "how could you go and ruin everything?"

He arose from his seat, and strode up and down the room, oblivious of
the lodgers below, whose windows shook with every angry stamp of his
foot.

"What made you act so like a child, an idiot, a fool?" he said
indignantly to Prosper.

"Monsieur!"

"Here you are, drowning; an honest man springs into the water to save
you, and just as he approaches the shore you entangle his feet to
prevent him from swimming! What was my last order to you when I left
here?"

"To keep quiet, and not go out of the hotel."

"Well."

The consciousness of having done a foolish thing made Prosper appear
like a frightened school-boy, accused by his teacher of playing truant.

"It was night, monsieur," he hesitatingly said, "and, having a violent
headache, I took a walk along the quay thinking there was no risk in
my entering a cafe; there I picked up a paper, and read the dreadful
announcement."

"Did you not promise to trust everything to me?"

"You were absent, monsieur; and you yourself might have been surprised
by an unexpected--"

"Only fools are ever surprised into committing a piece of folly," cried
M. Verduret impatiently. "To write an anonymous letter! Do you know to
what you expose me? Breaking a sacred promise made to one of the few
persons whom I highly esteem among my fellow-beings. I shall be looked
upon as a liar, a cheat--I who--"

He abruptly stopped, as if afraid to trust himself to speak further;
after calming down a little, he turned to Prosper, and said:

"The best thing we can do is to try and repair the harm you ha