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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
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