e, retired with winnings amounting to five hundred thousand
francs. On the boulevard the next day they said five millions, and
everybody cried out on the scandal, especially the _Messenger_,
three-quarters filled by an article against certain adventurers
tolerated in the clubs, and who cause the ruin of the most honourable
families.

Alas! what Jansoulet had won hardly represented enough to meet the first
Schwalbach bills.

During this wild play, of which Mora was, however, the involuntary
cause, and, as it were, the soul, his name was not once uttered. Neither
Cardailhac nor Jenkins put in an appearance. Monpavon had taken to his
bed, stricken more deeply than he wished it to be thought. Nobody had
any news.

"Is he dead?" Jansoulet said to himself as he left the club; and he felt
a desire to make a call to inquire before going home. It was no longer
hope that urged him, but that sort of morbid and nervous curiosity which
after a great fire leads the smitten unfortunate people, ruined and
homeless, back to the wreck of their dwellings.

Although it was still very early, and a pink mist of dawn hung in the
sky, the whole mansion stood open as if for a solemn departure. The
lamps still smoked over the fire-places, dust floated about the rooms.
The Nabob advanced amid an inexplicable solitude of desertion to the
first floor, where at last he heard a voice he knew, that of Cardailhac,
who was dictating names, and the scratching of pens over paper. The
clever stage-manager of the festivities in honour of the Bey was
organizing with the same ardour the funeral pomps of the Duc de Mora.
What activity! His excellency had died during the evening; when morning
came already ten thousand letters were being printed, and everybody
in the house who could hold a pen was busy with the writing of the
addresses. Without passing through these improvised offices, Jansoulet
reached the waiting-room, ordinarily so crowded, to-day with all its
arm-chairs empty. In the middle, on a table, lay the hat, cane, and
gloves of M. le Duc, always ready in case he should go out unexpectedly,
so as to save him even the trouble of giving an order. The objects that
we always wear keep about them something of ourselves. The curve of the
hat suggested that of the mustache; the light-coloured gloves were ready
to grasp the supple and strong Chinese cane; the total effect was one
of life and energy, as if the duke were about to appear, stretch out his
ha