the elder man uneasily.

"I mean that Juve was at the Royal Palace Hotel."

"Juve?" exclaimed Etienne Rambert. "And then--go on!"

"Juve, disguised as Henri Verbier, subjected me to a kind of
examination, and I don't know what conclusion he came to. Then, this
evening, barely two hours ago, he came up to my room and had a long
talk, and while he was trying to get some information from me about a
matter that I know nothing about--for I swear, papa, that I had nothing
whatever to do with the robbery--he came up to me and took hold of me as
a man does when he wants to make up to a woman. And I lost my head! I
felt that in another minute all would be up with me--that he would
establish my identity, which he perhaps suspected already--and I thought
of all you had done to save my life by representing that I was dead,
and----"

Charles paused for breath. His father's fists were clenched and his face
contracted.

"Go on!" he said, "go on, but speak lower!"

"As Juve came close," Charles went on, "I dealt him a terrific blow on
the forehead, and he fell like a stone. And I got away!"

"Is he dead?" Etienne Rambert whispered.

"I don't know."

* * * * *

For ten minutes Charles Rambert remained alone in the study, where his
father had left him, thinking deeply. Then the door opened and Etienne
Rambert came back carrying a bundle of clothes.

"There you are," he said to his son: "here are some man's clothes. Put
them on, and go!"

The young man hastily took off his woman's garments and dressed himself
in silence, while his father walked up and down the room, plunged in
deepest thought. Twice he asked: "Are you quite sure it was Juve?" and
twice his son replied "Quite sure." And once again Etienne Rambert
asked, in tones that betrayed his keen anxiety: "Did you kill him?" and
Charles Rambert shrugged his shoulders and replied: "I told you before,
I do not know."

And now Charles Rambert stood upon the threshold of the house, about to
leave his father without a word of farewell or parting embrace. M.
Etienne Rambert stayed him, holding out a pocket-book, filled full with
bank-notes.

"There: take that," he said, "and go!"

XV. THE MAD WOMAN'S PLOT

When Dr. Biron built his famous private asylum in the very heart of
Passy, intended, according to his prospectus, to provide a retreat for
people suffering from nervous breakdown or from overwork or
over-excitement, and to offe